RECEIVING YOUR TEMPLATE

Your template will be sent to you via email as a WinZip file. If you do not have WinZip, you can download a free trial version (does not expire) from their site.

Please make sure you can receive email attachments. If you are uncomfortable receiving attachments, please let us know. We can upload the zip file and send you the link for you to download to your computer. One of the files included in the zip file is for use with TagBot. Sometimes your virus software will quarantine the zip file thinking the .tpl is a virus because the file extension is not recognized. So check your spam folder.

After receiving your zip file, open a new folder on your computer and save the zip file into that folder. Unzip the contents into the folder. After unzipping the files, you will find a text file called "PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU BEGIN". Take a few moments and read the file. It contains many useful links and contact information.

FILES INCLUDED IN YOUR ZIP FILES & WHAT THEY ARE

Once you unzip the files, you will see all the graphic and template files that come with the template:
Files with the extensions .gif or .jpg: are the graphic files*.
The HTML file has the extension .htm. You can open this directly into any HTML editor for manual editing.
The TEXT file uses the extension .txt: You can open this directly into any text editor for manual editing.
The .tpl file is used with TagBot.
name.gif or name.jpg: These are your custom graphics. You will need to upload these images to your own image host.
PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU BEGIN.txt: This is the help file.

*You do not need to do anything with these files. But if you decide to use the template for a long period of time, we do recommend uploading the graphics to your own image host and replacing the URLs.

HOSTING YOUR CUSTOM GRAPHICS AND PHOTOS

Although we do host the standard graphics that come with the pre-made templates, you will need an image host for your photos and custom graphics. You will need to upload your photos and personalized graphic(s) to your host. This may be space provided to you by your ISP, or a free or paid image hosting service. If you need a place to host your photos and images, please see our Links page.

USING YOUR OWN PHOTOS

A picture is worth a thousand words. When taking pictures for your listings take pictures with the idea that there will be no written descriptions. Photos for eBay are best when restricted to approximately 450 pixels wide and approximately 30kb in size (which can be adjusted by changing the compression). Resizing your photos is done in an image editing program. If you need imaging editing software, please see our Links page. You may already have a program that came with your scanner, digital camera or printer that can do the same job. Do not use HTML to resize your photos. Always size and compress your photos BEFORE uploading them to your host.

MANUALLY EDITING THE HTML OR TEXT FILE

If you choose to manually edit this template, we recommend Notepad, Araneae, Dreamweaver or 1stPage 2000 for PC users and for Mac users we recommend Dreamweaver or TextEdit. Although FrontPage can be used, it must be used with some caution adhering to the following guidelines: 1) Work in the HTML mode only; 2) When you are done editing your template, save it as a TXT file; 3) Do not flip between the Normal and Preview modes to preview your work, always send it to your browser for viewing. FrontPage automatically inserts or "fixes" the HTML, inline CSS and/or JavaScript used in our templates (or any other template) and we will not support or "fixquot; files that you attempt to edit it FrontPage.

Do not use Word to edit these templates. Again, we will not support or "fix" files that you attempt to edit it Word.

For recommended HTML software please see our Links page.

Be very careful when editing the templates manually. Extra spaces, or accidentally deleting tags can drastically change the appearance of the templates and thier functionality. Templates are commented to help with manual editing. Whether using the HTML or TXT files look for this code:

FINDING THE URLs (LINKS) TO YOUR "ME" PAGE, FEEDBACK, STORE, AUCTIONS

Finding the URLs that you will need to insert some of our templates is very easy to do. Simply go to the page that you need find the URL for, and copy the code that appears in your browsers address bar. This works for everything except finding your Store ID. To find your store ID you will need to "view source" on your store home page, and search for this line: <input name="sid" value=", your store ID number is the number after value.

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