How to use the Substack editor
Editing Using the Substack Editor Edition
Hi! This is a draft post. Or, it was, until I discovered it lurking in my drafts, and wondered to myself I did not write any drafts that I am aware of, what could this possibly be? Did you know that there are a bunch of nice formatting options in this editor? For example:
Block quotes are a nice way to put a quote or excerpt from a source. They make it clear that it is a quote. And they are shaped like a block. I guess. Though isn’t every paragraph a shaped that way? Shouldn’t they call it a vertical line quote since it is designated with a vertical line? Or they could call it something like a liney quote or a bluey quote since the line is blue.
Of course, you can also do bold, italic, links, and all that good stuff. For a good example, did you notice how I used italics to indicate a thought I had in my head above? Pretty clever, right? No. Well, screw you smart-ass, if you’re so smart why are you reading something I have written? Huh? Answer me that. Thought so.
Headings and Embeddings. Yes it Sounds a Little Dirty, Like Sexy Dirty, if You Think About It. But It’s Not.
You can have headings in posts. Just use the “Style” list in the toolbar. You can also embed different types of content. I do like how Substack follows the appropriate convention and capitalizes the first letter of every word in a heading, unlike some other websites I know. Also, that they do not require a subtitle which is almost as stupid as a 600 word minimum limit for publication. To add an image, just drag it in here or use the image selector tool in the toolbar. If you want to be cute you can select an image of a tool and drag it here for fun.
For a tweet, YouTube video, Vimeo video, Spotify track, or SoundCloud embed, just paste the relevant link on a new line (don’t grab the embed code; it won’t work. Thankfully I have no idea how to do that, so I should be OK on this point.)
Ironically Hamish is also an amazing tool with an awful name.
I’ll pass on the video watching. Way too much effort.
So that’s where they got the name for that stupid magazine.
Damn. That album sucks.
Boring to the tenth power.
To delete a post, click on the Settings button (just to the left of Publish), and scroll down and find the delete button. Never do this. Unless the post really sucks like this one, then delete, delete, delete.
Publishing Changes or Changing Publishers
You have three publishing options:
Publish – this publishes your post only to the web.
Publish & Send – this publishes your post to the web and at the same time sends the post out by email.
Do not publish - this saves you from tons of embarrassment and the humiliation that comes with realizing only two people found your post about the secret lives of pie-makers worth reading.
Note: Once you have sent an email out, the only way to send it again is to create an entirely new post. Any edits you make to a post that has already been published will only be reflected on the web. So, there’s no need to worry about accidentally spamming your subscribers with repeat emails. Phew. That is my biggest fear in life. That and fish.
Finally, if you import posts from some other site’s archives, you can backdate them so they are published in the correct order and associated with the correct publication dates. To do so, after you have published a post, go into that post’s Settings (just to the left of the Publish button) and select the desired date. That sounds like a ton of work. Once again I will have to take a pass.
If you have any questions, you can check out our Help Center or contact support! If I am ever so excited to contact support that I need an exclamation point, please kill me.