The first thing you'll notice, when using Guides.co, is that there's a standard look and feel to our Guides. There are a few things that you should know about before you jump into building your Guide.

As you've probably noticed, a Guide is comprised of three main areas: the header bar (1), the navigation bar (2), and the content box (3).

The Header Bar (1)

A number of tools exist in this header bar for readers. The first, the 'house' is a link back to the Guides.co front page. If, at any point, you need to go back to our marketplace to view more Guides, you can click the home button to jump right to that area of our website.

If you need to track down information quickly, you can use the search button to find any information in a Guide, based on keyword.

Finally, if you need to edit your Guide, look up your analytic information, or change your profile information , you can do this from the profile dropdown menu available in the header bar.

Attached below are images that illustrate where you can find these individual buttons.

The Home Button

Image: This Is The Home Button. It'll always be available to you in this position while reading your Guide.

The Search Button

Image: This Is The Search Button. It will help you find content in a hurry.

Profile Information

Image: This is where you can edit your content, view your analytics, and change your Guide settings.

The Navigation Bar (2)

As a reader the left side of your Guide serves as both a Table of Contents, as well as a reminder of what content you would like to revisit, or complete. This section of a Guide is what really sets us apart from other online formats. Guides provides readers with an area where the can quickly navigate between content sections, as well as scan for upcoming information with ease. Additionally, readers can also both "check" a box, and "star" content as a visual reminder.

Why A Navigation Bar?

This is the epicenter of a Guide. All content sections, and individual pages are listed out in a Table of Contents format in the left sidebar. If you need to quickly navigate content, and hop around from one section to another, following your interests. Content is chunked up at Guides to help you quickly jump in and out sections with ease.

Image: This is the navigation bar. Get to know it, it's a fantastic little tool.

The Checkmark Box: Marking Off Previously Read Content

There are two places a reader can "check" a content section. The first location is directly within the navigation bar (1). The second has be built to help you 'check' content without distracting your reading experience. At the end of ever page in your Guide there is also a 'check' icon (2) that you can use to mark off the content you've already read or interacted with.

Image: The two locations where you can 'check' content you've already read.

The "Star" Box: Denoting Favorite Content Sections Within A Guide

In addition to checking off content as you work your way through a Guide, you can also favorite certain content by clicking on the star icon. You should consider favoriting any piece of content you need to revisit in the future. Doing so, will help you quick track down information quickly, and more effectively than having to jump through entire pieces of content looking for buried information.

The Content Box (3)

This is where your content, and creation efforts really start to shine. In this section, your content will be displayed to your readers. In addition to text, and images, you can also embed rich multimedia content from third party services like YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, Google Maps, and content from any other service online that let's you generate an iFrame to display content.

In addition to your content, there are also a few other tools we've built into Guides. These tools include a resource widget, a pro tips widget, a commenting system, and note pad.

Resources

Built into our Guide editor (more on the editor is available in another section) is the ability to attach resources to a page. Resources typically include other assets that are being shared with readers, including spreadsheets, PDFs, word documents, and other file types. These types of additions to your Guide can really help your content stand out from the crowd.

If there are other documents you think are critical to the process and that you have permission to share and redistribute, you can add those here as well (always leave credit and thanks to the original source somewhere in the description of the task).

Image: This Is What A Resource Widget Will Look Like To Readers.

Pro Tips

Sometimes it's important to focus attention in on some information that may only partially be related to the content, or that needs a bit more explanation. Our Pro Tips widget helps authors offset important information in a visually compelling way.

Tips are little golden nuggets of advice, expert insight, or "out-of-the-box" approaches that you (the author) wants to include based on your experience or observation.

Image: A Pro Tip Appears At The End Of A Page For Readers.

Both Resources and Pro Tips appear at the end of a page, should an author include the features when creating content. We've found them to be extreme helpful for enhancing content within Guides.

Discussions

One of our favorite features we've built into Guides is the ability to leave comments (both private and public) on every piece of content built into a Guide. Discussions can help readers get clarifications on confusing material, but active community participation can also help authors cull their content and shore up any weaknesses that readers may find in a document. The end result, thanks to this collaborative process is better content for everyone.

Image: An Empty Comment Box.

My Notes

The "My Notes" tab attached to the commenting box is a personal, private notepad for readers. Readers can make notes on the content they just read, and then revisit them at any point and time. This notepad is a great way to summarize important points, or scratch out ideas as they come to you during the reading process.

The Prev/Next Buttons

The last element on the page of a Guide is our built-in page navigator. Readers can navigate content page-by-page if they desire, eliminating the need for clicking a mouse button in-order to hop between content sections.