USER GUIDE

Newsletter Builder

The Newsletter Builder puts your newsletter together one headline at a time. You supply a photo, a title, and a few sentences for each item — the Builder handles the layout, the spacing, and making it readable on a phone. This guide is a supplement to SimpleSend.

Please consider the environment before printing.

Before you begin

The Builder is one way to write a newsletter, so everything in the SimpleSend guide still applies. In particular, set up at least one Email Topic first — a topic is the audience your newsletter goes to, and you cannot send without one.

If you plan to use photos, upload them to the Media Library first. The Builder picks images from your library rather than uploading them on the spot.

Open the Builder from either Apps › SimpleSend › New Newsletter or the New Newsletter button on SimpleSend › All Newsletters. Both land on the same screen.

1 Choose how to build

The New Newsletter screen offers three ways to start. Pick one:

Newsletter Builder (recommended)	Build from headlines. Add a photo, a title, and some text for each item, and the Builder handles the layout so it looks right on phones automatically. Use this unless you have a specific reason not to.
Start blank (advanced)	A single open editor with no structure. Best if you are pasting in content you have already formatted, or you want full control of the HTML.
I designed it in Canva	Not a third editor — it is instructions. See If you designed it in Canva below.

Click Use the Builder to continue.

2 A quick tour of the Builder

The Builder screen has two tabs: Content (what your newsletter says) and Style (what it looks like). You will spend nearly all your time on Content.

The Content tab runs top to bottom in the same order your readers will see it:

Intro (optional) — a greeting or a sentence or two about what is in this issue.
Your headlines — the body of the newsletter, one card per item.
Sign-off (optional) — a closing line: contact details, a thank you, a reminder.

Alongside is a live preview that updates as you type, so you can watch the newsletter take shape.

3 Add your first headline

Click Add Headline. An editing window opens on top of the page. Fill in what you have — every field is optional except a photo description if you add a photo — then click Save Section. Your headline appears in the list and in the preview.

There is also Add Text Section, which is the same window without the photo. Use it for a paragraph that does not need a picture, such as a note about a schedule change.

Tip: Write one headline per thing you want people to notice. Three or four short items get read far more often than one long block of text.

4 What each field does

Photo	Click the box to choose an image from your Media Library. Remove photo clears it.
Photo description (alt text)	A sentence describing what is in the picture, for readers who cannot see it. Required whenever you add a photo — see below.
Headline	The title of this item. Write it like a sentence a resident would understand at a glance: "Spring Cleanup Week is April 12-16" beats "Cleanup Notice".
Text	A few sentences about the item. You get bold, italic, underline, bullet and numbered lists, and links. Deliberately fewer options than the full Page Editor, because email supports far less formatting than a web page.
Buttons	Up to three clickable buttons, each with a label and a web address. Use them for "Register now" or "Read the full notice". Click + Add button to add one.
Attached files	Files that ride along with the newsletter, such as a flyer or an agenda PDF.

Click Save Section to keep your changes, or Cancel (or the X in the corner) to discard them and put the item back the way it was.

5 Reorder, copy, and remove

Each item in the list has a row of buttons:

Edit — reopens the editing window. Double-clicking the item does the same thing.
Duplicate — makes a copy just below, handy when several items share a layout.
Move up and Move down — shift the item one position.
Remove — deletes the item.

You can also drag an item by its handle to move it further in one go. If you prefer the keyboard, focus the handle and use the arrow keys.

Tip: Put your most important item first. Many readers only see the top of the email before deciding whether to keep reading.

6 Photo descriptions are required

If an item has a photo, the Builder will not let you save it until you have written a photo description. Items still missing one are marked Needs alt text in the list so you can spot them at a glance.

This is not busywork. Residents using a screen reader hear the description in place of the picture, and many email programs show it when images are blocked or slow to load. Describe what is actually in the photo — "Crew loading yard waste into a truck" — rather than repeating the headline.

Public bodies are generally required to make communications accessible. See the EvoAccess guide for how the rest of your site is checked.

7 The Style tab

The Style tab controls how your newsletter looks. The defaults are chosen to work everywhere, so most sites never change them — but if you want the newsletter to match your brand, this is where you do it.

Separator between headlines	The divider drawn between items.
Photo width, shape, position	How large pictures are, whether their corners are rounded, and where they sit relative to the text.
Headline font, size, color	The look of item titles.
Body font, text size, text color	The look of the paragraphs under each title.
Button color and corner rounding	The look of the clickable buttons in your items.
Card corner rounding	How rounded the corners of each item card are.

Click Save Style Settings when you are happy. These settings are remembered for future newsletters, so you only need to set your look once.

Go easy on text size and color. Very small text and low-contrast colors are hard to read on a phone in daylight, and cause accessibility problems. If in doubt, leave the defaults alone.

8 Preview before you send

The preview updates as you work. Use the Desktop and Phone buttons above it to switch widths — most residents read email on a phone, so check that view before every send. Open full preview shows the newsletter at full size in its own window.

The preview is a very good likeness, but it is not a real inbox. Always finish with Send Test to email a copy to yourself and a coworker, as described in the SimpleSend guide. Then choose your topics and send.

9 If you designed it in Canva

Canva, Publisher, and Word all produce a fixed page layout. Email cannot reproduce that — the design breaks apart, or arrives as one giant image that many people never see, because a lot of email programs block images by default.

Here is the approach that works:

In Canva, choose Share › Download › PDF Standard.
Come back here and choose Newsletter Builder.
Write two or three sentences in the intro telling people what is in the attachment and why they should open it.
Attach the PDF. Recipients get your design exactly as you made it, and something readable even if they never open it.

Tip: Repeat the most important detail — the date, the deadline, the phone number — in the intro text. Assume some readers will never open the attachment.

10 Switching to the blank editor

If you start in the Builder and decide you want the open editor instead, use Convert to blank editor. Your headlines are turned into ordinary content you can edit freely.

This cannot be undone. Once converted, the items are ordinary content and you cannot go back to editing them as headlines. If you are unsure, send yourself a test first so you have a copy of how it looked.

Next steps

Build a short newsletter with two or three headlines, check it in the Phone preview, and send a test to yourself before choosing your topics and sending for real.

Related guides: SimpleSend for topics, sending, and the Newsletter Report; Media Library for the photos you place in headlines; EvoAccess for accessibility across the rest of your site.

Need a hand? Contact EvoGov support or visit help.evogov.com.