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Working with Digital articles in Studio

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Digital articles are used for creating channel-neutral content for output to digital and print channels. They are edited in the Digital editor.

Working with Digital articles in Studio can be done in many ways.

This article gives a brief overview of each task that can be performed and provides links to other articles that contain more detailed information.

The following topics are described:

Info: Use the filter to only show information for one section:

Creating a new article

Two processes are available: a quick process and a more manual process.

Quick process

Info: This requires Studio 11.228 or higher.

Step 1. Locate the article template that you want to base the article on.

Step 2. Do one of the following:

  • Double-click it
  • Use keyboard shortcut E, Cmd+E (macOS), or Ctrl+E (Windows)

The 'Create New' dialog is displayed. The article type and template is already preselected.

Step 3. Verify the settings and click Next.

The Properties dialog appears.

Step 4. Fill out all necessary details and click Create. The article is created and opened for editing.

Manual process

Step 1. Click Create new... at the top of the page.

The 'Create New' window is displayed.

Step 2. Make sure that Digital article is selected.

Step 3. Choose a template from the list to base the article on and click Next.

Tip: Type any part of the name of the template to filter the list.

The Properties dialog is displayed.

Step 4. Fill out all necessary details and click Create. The article is created and opened for editing.

Creating a new article, steps 1 and 2

Creating a new article, step 3

Figure: The process of creating a new Digital article: click 'Create new...' (1), choose 'Digital article', select a template and click Next (2), type a name, set properties and click Create (3).

Note: For more detailed information, see Creating a new article in Studio.

Working with article components

In Studio Server, articles consist of one or more components, each containing specific content. A typical article consists of a "head" component containing the header, an "intro" component containing a short introduction, and a "body" component containing the main text.

From a technical point of view, each article component is treated separately. This means that text cannot be selected across multiple components.

When working with components, you can:

  • Add or remove components
  • Rearrange components
  • Copy and paste components
  • Set properties for the component
  • Change the component type

Adding a component

Figure: Adding a Slideshow component to the story.

Note: The information about article components is based on the default set of components. Depending on how the system is configured, the components in your installation of Studio may be different than what is shown here.

For more information, see Working with the components of a Digital article in Studio.

Adding comments

Working on a publication is team work. In a typical workflow therefore, an article will go through many changes before it can be published.

To discuss or communicate these changes, comments can be added.

Step 1. In the article, select the text to which you want to add a comment.

Step 2. In the toolbar that appears, click the Comment icon.

The Comment icon in the toolbar of selected text

The Comments panel opens. An empty comment has been created with the cursor placed in it.

An empty comment in the Comments panel

Note: The position of the comment in the panel reflects the position in the article relative to any other comments: if the new comment is placed after an existing comment in the article, it is also placed after that comment in the panel.

Step 3. Type your comment in the panel. When done, press Enter, click the Comment button, or click anywhere outside of the comment.

For more information, see Using comments in a Digital article in Studio.

Tracking the paragraph, word, and character count

Knowing how many paragraphs, words and characters are in an article, component, or selection of text is essential for a writer. This is indicated in the status bar at the bottom of the editor.

Viewing the character, word, and paragraph count of selected text

On the left side of the status bar, the total number of characters, words, and paragraphs are displayed for the following:

  • A text component when the cursor is placed in that component and no text is selected.
  • Multiple text components when multiple components containing text are selected.
  • Selected text when a section of text in a text component is selected.

The label in front of the counter shows either the name of the currently active component, or 'Selection' when multiple components or a section of text is selected.

On the right side of the status bar, the total number of paragraphs, words, or characters is shown for the whole article. Choose from the list which one to view.

Note: Which components are included in the calculation can be configured.

Automatic character conversion

Entering often used special characters such as arrows, copyright symbols, or quotation marks (also known as 'smart quotes') can be cumbersome because they require a dedicated panel or keyboard shortcut.

To make entering such characters easier, an automatic conversion takes place when entering a specific character or combination of characters.

Example: Entering (c) results in the © character, entering +- will create the ± character, and so on.

The table below shows the default set of character sequences and the special character into which they are automatically converted.

Notes:

  • Quotation marks can also optionally be automatically converted to a curly or guillemet punctuation mark, depending on how Studio is configured.
  • To use the entered characters instead of the converted characters, use Undo by pressing Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Cmd+Z (macOS) after the conversion has taken place.
  • A conversion only takes place when manually entering text, not when pasting text.
Entered characters Converted characters
<--<space> ←
--> →
<--> ↔
-+ ±
+- ±
~= ≈
(c) ©
(r) ®
(tm) ™
(o) ˚
... …
<< «
>> »
1/2<space> 1/2, 1/2. ½<space> ½, ½.
1/4<space> 1/4, 1/4 1/4<space> 1/4, 1/4
3/4<space> 3/4, 3.4. ¾<space> ¾, ¾.
<space>-<space> <space>–<space>
(( ‹
)) ›

Applying styling

Changing the way the text in a story looks can be done by applying styling in various ways:

  • Selecting some text and making simple style changes such as applying bold or italic or applying a character style.
  • Changing the properties of a component to control styling such as text alignment.
  • Applying a Style variant with predefined styles to a component.
  • Adjusting the style by editing the CSS code.

Depending on your needs and expertise, such changes can either be made in a very simple manner or by adjusting code. For details, see the following articles:

Changing the file name or other settings of an article

Changing the settings of an article, such as its name, can be done in the Properties panel on the Search page.

Tip: Changing the name of the article can also be done by clicking it at the top of the page in the Digital editor.

Select a single article, make sure that the Properties panel is open by clicking its icon on the right side of the screen, and change any of the available settings.

Digital article properties

Figure: Change the settings of a selected article by opening the Properties panel and changing any of the settings.

For more information, see Changing the properties of a file in Studio.

Previewing an article

An article that is published digitally is likely to be viewed on devices with a variety of screen sizes. To verify how the article looks on a specific device, the article can be previewed from within the editor.

Do this by clicking Preview in the top right corner and choose from one of the available devices.

Previewing an article

Publishing to a digital channel

The aim of creating a digital article is of course to publish it at some stage. This can be done by publishing it to a custom channel such as a Web CMS, or to channels such as Pugpig or Twixl.

Note: Take note of the ways of optimizing images for publishing to a digital channel.

Step 1. Do one of the following:

  • Select a group of files, right-click any of the files and choose Publish from the context menu.
  • Open an article in the Digital editor and click Publish in the top right corner.

Step 2. In the dialog that appears, select the channels to which the articles should be published, optionally enter an e-mail address, and click Publish.

Publishing multiple Digital articles to multiple channels

For more detailed information, see:

Searching for Digital articles

Apart from using the default ways of searching for a file in Studio, Digital articles can also be found by using the components that the article contains as the search criteria.

Example: Search for all Digital articles that contain media components of type 'slideshow', 'image', 'social media', and 'video'.

Performing such a search is possible by using a Custom Search.

A Custom Search with Digital article component types set up

Creating a print variant

In a 'digital first' workflow in Studio, stories are first published to one or more digital output channels such as a Web CMS.

Next, these stories might be re-used in a print publication such as tomorrow's newspaper or next month's magazine.

To re-use a Digital article in a print workflow, a print variant of the Digital article can be created which is optimized for a print environment and placed on a layout.

The process of creating a print variant consists of the following actions:

  • A print variant is created in the form of a Print article
  • The Print article is subsequently placed on a layout

Creating a print variant can be done by placing it on a layout that already exists (typically done from within the Publication Overview application), or by placing it on a new layout.

For more information, see the following articles:

Viewing to which Studio Server files the article is linked

An article is typically part of one or more Dossiers or placed on a layout. To see which files in Studio Server the article is related to, use the Linked Files panel.

The Linked files panel

Figure: The Linked Files panel shows to which files in Studio Server a file is linked.

For each file, the relation to the selected article is shown: 'Part of' for a Dossier that the article that is part, 'Placed on' for a layout that the article is placed on, and so on.

For more information, see Viewing to which Studio Server files a file is linked using Studio.

Comparing article versions

An article typically goes through many changes which are made by multiple people. It can be practical (and even important) to verify which changes were made, when they were made and by whom they were made as work on the article progresses or even after the article has been published.

This can be done by comparing one version of a Digital article with the version before it.

The following changes are shown:

  • For components that contain text: Text that has been removed is shown on a red background with strike-through text; text that has been added is shown on a green background.
  • For components that do not contain text (such as image, interactive, social, and video components): changes to the content of the component cannot be shown; only shown is if the component itself has been added or removed.

Comparing versions of a Digital article

Figure: Comparing versions of a Digital article.

For more information, see Comparing articles.

Restoring a previous version

When working on a Digital article, a version of the article is saved at various moments (see Viewing and restoring file versions using Studio).

Restoring a previous version as the current version can be done by done by using the History panel in the Search results page, or the History panel in the Digital editor (see Viewing and restoring file versions using Studio).

Restoring a file

Bookmarking and sharing an article

Studio runs in a Web browser and each page that is visited therefore has its own link or URL.

When you are working on an article on a regular basis, simply bookmark the link for later use. This way, you can quickly and easily access the article instead of having to search for it each time.

In a similar way, you can share the link with other users (they will need to have sufficient rights though to access it).

For more information, see Bookmarking and sharing Studio links.

Exporting an InDesign layout to a Digital article

Stories that have been created as a layout in InDesign for use in a print workflow can be turned into a Digital article by exporting the layout from InDesign.

For more information, see Exporting an InDesign layout to a Digital article in Studio.

Using keyboard shortcuts

To make editing Digital articles and working in Studio in general more efficient, various keyboard shortcuts can be used for performing specific tasks.

For a full overview, see:

Revisions

  • 30 September 2026: Added section 'Quick process' to section 'Creating a new article'.

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