From the Help Desk: Image Issues

This post kicks off a new series, “From the Help Desk,” where we explore some of the questions seen in the support queue.

One of the most common issues we see day-to-day has to do with images. Specifically, “What size should my image be?” Sometimes this is accompanied by, “Why don’t my images show up?”  While we have a checklist for helping to ensure your images are all set for the web, I’d like to call out the main culprit: your digital camera.

Whether it’s a point-and-shoot or a fancy DSLR, your digital camera does not take web-friendly images. (Unless, of course, you’re still using that hot ticket from 1996.) Your camera's images are meant to be printed. Printing requires quite a bit more detail than displaying an image on a computer monitor. More detail equals more data, which equals larger file sizes, which, of course, equals slower load-times on your website.

Since you want your images to display nice and crisp, think pixels. And to think pixels, you also need to think photo editing. You'll need to use an image editor to get the most of your photos and we have a few recommendations.

Once you have your image-editing program of choice, open it up and decide how large (in pixels) you want your images to appear on your site. For content areas look to the column widths you’ve set in the Style editor. For picture galleries, look to the maximum width you’ve set in the gallery properties. (Hint: unless you’ve changed it, the default max is 1200 pixels wide.) Once you’ve determined your picture widths, save your images to be no larger than that size. Be sure your pixels per inch (PPI) are set to 72, as this is the most common pixel density for screen display. The result will be a crisp image that loads quickly.

While we’re on the subject of saving images, the other common issue we see has to do with files that aren’t images at all. While PDF and Word documents may contain images, they are not a valid image format and (most) browsers will not display them. We recommend you use one of these 3 file types: .jpg, .png, or .gif. You can convert non-image files to one of these formats using the programs I mentioned above. After that, you're good to go.

For more help with images, visit our help site, contact support, or sign up for our “All About Images” workshop. 

Workshops 101

We're running a phenomenal program at Squarespace that you may not have even heard about yet: Workshops. This program of interactive, online seminars launched 6 months ago, born out of a desire to provide an environment where customers would be able to participate in a classroom-like setting and get the in-person guidance they wanted. Oh, and they're free. 

Before joining the team, I attended my first workshop as an observer. It seemed like an effortless production. It wasn't until after I joined the ranks that I witnessed all it took to make that workshop happen. Behind each workshop are a couple of monitors, mic stands, sound panels, multiple applications running, not to mention the memorization of 45 minutes worth of content.

In addition to all of those moving parts, a workshop is a constant stream of information-sharing. While one customer care team member (usually me) actually presents the material, another team member answers questions in chat. That means anyone can ask any question at any time. We also make sure to leave a few minutes at the end of each session to talk through the questions asked during the workshop, so that everyone benefits from each other's questions. 

At least 5 times each workshop, we see the lightbulb go off for a customer. For some it might be a sequence of questions and for others it might be just one. But it's the exclamatory thank you that comes afterward that gets me fired up, thinking about what this means for the customers—people are making progress and experiencing the potential of this product we all love so much. It means that another person is better able to do what they set out to do. 

Since we launched Workshops, we have not only seen thousands of people attend classes, but the size of the team running the program has tripled. Several other support team members (Paulina, Gavin, Will, Alex, and Shon) have joined me and we've grown the syllabus to include 6 topics, with plenty more in the pipeline. Our vision is to have an ever growing library of workshops that address the possibilities of publishing your site with Squarespace, whether you're a beginner or have been using Squarespace for years.  

For more information about the classes and a full schedule, visit our Workshops site. The classes we offer are:

• Getting Started with Squarespace
• Next Steps with Squarespace
• Beyond the Blog
• Search Engine Optimization
• Building a Portfolio Website
• Custom Domain Mapping 

Next week we're offering several sessions of Getting Started with Squarespace, and many of the other topics in the weeks to come. I look forward to seeing you in class!

Support Ticket Changes

If you've submitted a support ticket recently, you may have noticed that we've made some changes. To help us scale with our growing customer base and keep our engineers working on all the new features and platform improvements you're looking forward to, Squarespace has moved our support system to Assistly. Assistly's customer service platform lets us continue to provide the same high-quality, 24/7 support to all our customers, and gives us some new tools to help get your questions answered as quickly and thoroughly as possible. 

The biggest change is that the ticket system is now email-based. You can still submit a ticket from the Support Tickets tab in your Website Manager, but now email replies will be sent to the address you have on file for your account. You can follow up with us in your email directly instead of seeing your tickets listed within your account.

An email-based system brings some key benefits:

Responsiveness

• Even when we are experiencing systems issues, we can continue to respond to all inbound support requests in real-time. Previously, our support systems relied on Squarespace's infrastructure, which meant that when Squarespace experienced a hiccup, we were unable to respond to you in a timely manner. 

 Attachments

• You can now include attachments and screenshots with your messages.  This is a great way to show the support team what you're seeing on your site, so your issue can be pinpointed more quickly.

Archiving and Search

• Our ticket replies will now be sent to the email address on file for the site, which makes it easier for you to search your email client for previous responses if you need to reference your ticket again.  Also, you can use tools in your email to file and organize your replies from Squarespace.

Collaboration

• There is now a carbon copy feature for support tickets.  If you're working on a project with more than one administrator, you can copy them on the ticket reply, or request they be included in the message so everyone can be on the same ticket thread.

You'll also notice that our help guides have moved to help.squarespace.com. This new guide brings some improvements we think you'll enjoy:

Search

• Search on our help files is more responsive -- you can easily find the article to answer your questions.  As you start typing in the search field, a list of suggested entries will populate to help you locate the entry you need.

Ratings

• We now have a rating feature for our articles, which allows you to determine how helpful a particular help file is to your question.  With this feature, we can make sure that the articles we provide are relevant and detailed each and every time.

Videos

• In our help files, we provide overview videos to outline some Squarespace functions, and as supplements to existing guides.  We've updated these for a better viewing experience, and are formatting our videos to display on a variety of devices.

With this change, it's crucial that you keep a valid email address on file for the owner account. This is where your ticket replies and important account notices will be sent.  If you've mailed in a ticket and haven't heard back from us, be sure to check your junk mail folder, and to add support@squarespace.com to your list of trusted senders.

As always let us know if there's anything we can help you out with, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.