Block Palette - text and photo options (run time: 8 min)
Now click the plus sign below the cover, and a menu of options will appear. This menu called the block palette, is the heart of the StoryMaps builder. It gives you a set of options—think of them as building blocks—with which you can assemble your story, piece by piece. The palette is organized by function: basic features, incorporating media, and immersive blocks.
Feel free to play around. Try different blocks—it's easy to delete items that you add. For text, just highlight and delete, like you would in any text document. To delete graphics, click three dots at the end of the toolbar that appears when hovering over the item, and select Delete.
It makes sense to start with the Text option. When you choose Text, you'll see a flashing cursor, below which is a menu of text formatting options. If you want to add standard text, just start typing (or pasting) your text. But you can also use the menu to create bold or italic passages, add a hyperlink, alter the text color, and change your text into a different kind of text block—including heading, subheading, quote, etc. The same menu will appear every time you highlight a piece of text.
Now try typing in two or more paragraphs. (You can add consecutive paragraphs by simply pressing return on your keyboard.) As you hover over the text, you'll see that little plus sign appear in the left margin between paragraphs. You can click those little pluses to insert new content at any point within your story.
To create a Navigation section under Cover you can click on the drop-down menu of the Text option within the block palette. Switching from Paragraph to Heading will automatically create the navigation section that you can see in the image above.
Open the block palette, then pick Image from the menu. Navigate to your folders to find an image you'd like to include and add it to your story. When you hover over the image, you'll see a set of options in a panel at the top of the image.
The four items on the left let you set the size of the image. Small, medium, and large options are pretty obvious; large images go right up to the edge of the browser, which can provide a nice dramatic effect—but it should be used sparingly. There's also a Float option (far left). It lets you inset images into your story text. The gear symbol lets you add alternative text to your image. A click on the three dots lets you replace or delete the image.
By the way, with image sizing you’ll only be able to select sizes for which your image is large enough; e.g., you'll only be able to choose the large option if your image is at least 1,920 pixels wide.
Note that there's a place for a caption under each image that you add. Captions are optional; the placeholder Add a caption text won't appear when you publish your story. We recommend that you include credit information for your images—and to be sure you're not using copyrighted images without permission.
Once you've added images and other media, you can drag and drop items to move them around within your story. When you hover over a media item, a separator, or a button, you'll see a little handle appear next to its upper left corner.
Click and drag the handle, and you'll see a thumbnail follow you up and down the story, and a bar will appear between paragraphs and other items. Release the mouse and the item will reappear in its new location. You can move immersive sections around, too, but the handles for these are located on the left side of the slide panel.