This page is for whoever writes the articles. You need no technical knowledge, and you will never have to type a class by hand: Corpus is built so that the text comes out right without you having to think about it.
The article: title, standfirst, body
The title. Write it in the Title field at the top. Do not make it bold, do not put it in capitals, and do not repeat it as a heading inside the text: the template handles it, and only it knows which level to give it on a given page.
The standfirst. That is the first paragraph, the one answering "what is this about and why does it concern me". Two or three sentences. Corpus sets it slightly larger than the rest, but in the same colour: blue text would look like a link.
The Read More separator. Put it after the standfirst. Everything above it shows in article listings; everything below is only read in the full article. Without a separator, listings show the whole article.
Heading levels
In the body, use Heading 2, Heading 3, Heading 4 in order.
Levels follow the structure of the document, not the effect you are after. A smaller heading is not made by skipping a level: what you break is the page outline, and someone using a screen reader navigates by it.
Do not use Heading 1: it is already taken by the article title. There is only one per page.
If you hide the article title (Show Title: Hide) and the menu item does not show a page heading, Corpus still keeps that title as a Heading 1, hidden on screen but read by screen readers. You have nothing to add to the text.
Blocks, with the stamp button
The stamp button in the toolbar opens the list of blocks shipped with Corpus: alerts, buttons, column rows, contents list, quotation, tiles, table, accordion, tags.
Each one is inserted complete and formatted. All you do is replace the text and the images. The first entry, Les blocs de Corpus, inserts nothing: it is there to be read, and describes the others.
An accordion opens one panel at a time. Opening a question closes the one that was open, and clicking the open question closes it. The list thus fits on one screen.
For buttons, a shortcut: select the link text in your article first, then pick the block. Your text replaces the sample one.
Every block is bounded in the code by two markers, DÉBUT and FIN. They never appear on the site; they are there to find your way around the day you reopen the source.
Images
Alternative text is not optional. It describes what the image contributes, for someone who cannot see it. If the image is purely decorative, leave the field empty. Empty, not missing: that is what tells a screen reader to skip it.
Alternative text and caption say two different things. The first describes the image; the second adds what the image does not carry: the place, the date, a detail. Identical, they are announced twice in a row.
To align an image left or right, use the alignment button in the toolbar. The text wraps around it. You do not have to worry about clearing the float: a heading always starts again at the left edge, across the full width.
Enlarging an image on click. With the style setting Enlarge images on click (next to the Print, Email and Share buttons), an image placed in a figure opens large when clicked, with its caption, and the arrows move from one image of the article to the next. An image that is a link still leads to its link. The alternative text becomes the name of the button: one more reason to fill it in.
Links
A link text must make sense out of context. Many people scan a page by its links alone: ten "read more" in a row say nothing. Write "Read the 2026 report", not "click here".
Links in running text are always underlined. That is not negotiable: colour alone does not signal a link.
A link opening in a new tab gets a pictogram and the words "(new window)", automatically, you write nothing.
What the editor strips, and why it does not matter
TinyMCE removes <svg> from content when saving. Do not try to put them back: in Corpus, no pictogram in the text is written into the content. Alerts, the accordion chevron and the external-link icon are drawn by the template. They will come back on their own.
More generally: if something is not styled, it is not your job to add a class. Report it: it is for the template to handle.
What we do not do
- Writing in capitals for emphasis. Some screen readers spell them out, and capitalised text is slower to read for everyone.
- Underlining anything that is not a link. Underlining is reserved for links.
- Carrying information by colour alone, "the red rows are urgent". Always add a word.
- Pasting from Word without cleaning: it brings hard-coded styles that escape the template. Use Paste as plain text, then reapply the formatting.
- Justifying text. Uneven word spacing hinders reading, particularly for dyslexic readers.
Up to date for Corpus 2.1.705.