As composers, you create content to be used in various media or channels. The act of composing content is a simple process. Select the type of content you want to create, add assets, text, and other details for your content to be ready.

The content type you use to create content is standardized by your admins and managers. The content types provide the elements of information that are valuable and required. The content types are not actual pieces of content. It is you who creates the content based on the provided elements.

Note: You can't add or remove elements from content forms. The fields displayed on a content form are the elements in the content type.

Create a content item

Click your profile icon and then Create content to start composing from any page in Content. You can also create content from the Content - My content, All content pages, or from within a library.

1. Click Create content and select a type, for example, a Design article.
2. Then provide a name and select the library where you want the content item stored, and click Create.

   Note: Access to the content items depends on access to the library. You can add the content item only to libraries that you can access.

3. The content item now opens as a content form. You can start adding content to the predefined elements that you see in the editor.
   1. Start composing by filling out the fields in the form. You will notice help text or inline help on the content form. Those were added by your admins or managers who created the content type to guide you along.
      Most fields are as simple as typing in your content. If the form includes the formatted text field, you can do simple formatting. The formatted text element has an integrated rich text editor.
   2. To add images to image fields, drag and drop or upload from your local folder. You can also browse for assets stored in the Content library by clicking browse assets. The assets tab opens with all the images stored in Content. Click on the image to add it to your content form.

      Note: If your admin has enabled Shutterstock access, you can access watermarked previews. Shutterstock's archive of images, videos, and music are available in the content palette.

      The image element may have image profiles associated with it. If so, then the image renditions defined are created and added to the content form.

      Configure image settings

      After adding the image to the image field, hover over the image and click Settings to open the Image setting tab.

      • You can choose to accept all updates from the source image. Otherwise, you can keep the version of the image added to the content form.

        Note: It is easy to maintain images in the library rather than in individual content items. You only need to go to one place to update an image that you used in several content items. Choose not to accept updates from the original asset only if you want an image to remain unchanged. You can only update image elements in this way.

      • You can also choose to use the alt text from the source or provide your own for this version used in the content form.
      • Make the image a link by providing a URL and selecting to open in a new tab.
      • View and access the image profiles applied to the image field.
   3. Reference content from other content items. You can reuse content when your content form has a reference element added to the content type. You can choose to find content already created or to create content from scratch.
      You can see other content items and image profiles that reference this content item. You can open any reference content items from the content form to edit them. The process is so seamless you will never have to leave the content form.

      Note: Access to the references depend on the library type and your permission level.

      Edit referenced images
      Editing referenced images affect all the content items where the image is referenced.

      Note: You can create a copy of the image if you do not want any changes applied to other content items.

   Note: You cannot see and work with an asset or reference item if it belongs to a library that you cannot access.

4. Add more details to your content item. Add a description, choose a library, add tags, and review the AI tags added by Content.

   Note: If the admin edits the defaults in a content type, it affects only new content created from this type.

   • View content languages and change language

     You can edit the content language settings for the content items. The default language for the content is the language set as the default in the admin settings page. Select a different default language for the content item from the dropdown list. The dropdown includes the list of languages that were set by the admin.

     The content language setting classifies content for the specific language you set. This setting makes it easier for users to find content items with the same language setting. It is used only as a search filter and doesn't restrict what text you can enter into content fields.

   • Set delivery access

     You can control who can access the content item by setting the Delivery access toggle to yes. The toggle is visible only when the admin enables it in the admin settings page.

     When you set the Delivery access toggle to yes, the deliver URL will differ and will have delivery in it. When the users access this delivery URL, they will be required to log in. For example,

     https://content-us-1-stage.content-cms.com/api/cb3bb1a0-1482-46b5-9f54-7996c6fa9847/*delivery*/v1/content/content:e28cf828-c2a6-4187-9736-0e87643b9dfa

     Note: The toggle section is non-editable for certain statuses. Composers without the right access can only see what the authentication state is.

   • Layout settings

     View the layout assigned to the content type and change the content's layout from the content form. The layout options were added to the content type by your developer. You can also work with content elements.

Work with custom user extension

When a custom user extension is applied to a particular element, that element has a custom UI set. When the custom user extension applies to the entire content, then:

• The content form has a customized UI.
• The custom UI displays inside an iframe.

Check out Custom user interfaces to learn how your developers create custom user interfaces and how managers add them to the content types.

Next steps

As you edit your content item, you can send them for review and view other's comments. Click Check completeness from the action toolbar to check your content. The completeness check show errors in the field with the error.

Note: Publish and Submit for review actions are inactive while there are errors.

You can keep editing the content item until you feel the content is right. When you edit a content item that requires approvals, it must be approved again after editing it. You can save the current state of content as a separate version marked with the date/time stamp. If your admin enables versioning, you can view and restore previous versions. Check out Enable versions.

You can also create a copy of the content item. The content item copy created is a draft. You can create a copy of the content item in any status, such as Published or even Retired.

Note: If the content item has references to other content items, you cannot delete it. Delete permissions also depend on the type of library and the access level to the library.