The Journal Manager can manipulate various aspects of the look of an OJS journal, without knowing very much in the way of CSS or HTML, including the header and footer, page content, menus and navigation, and journal layout.
You can upload header images and logos to your journal’s homepage to give your journal a unique appearance and identity. Choose between using a text title or an image at the top of your homepage by selecting Title Text or Title Image under the Journal Title section.
Any text you enter under the Text Title will appear at the top of your homepage (NOT to all the other pages – see below).
If you choose to use a title image instead, you can upload an image-based header in .gif, .jpg, or .png format. A common size is 800px X 150px, but it can be as large or as small as you wish.
You can also upload a logo, which will appear to the left of the title text or image on your journal’s homepage. Often this is a square image (e.g., 125px X 125px).
Whether using Title images or Logo images, remember to hit the Upload button before moving on to the next step.
In this section you can add a journal description, an image, the table of contents for the latest issue, and any additional content to your journal’s homepage. Experiment with what looks good, but be careful not to make it too busy! The appearance of your home page will be the first impression many have of your journal, and if it doesn’t look professional, it will undermine its credibility. Take a look at what some of the many other OJS journals have done, and you’ll be sure to find several examples that appeal to you.
This option allows you to place a different title, image, or logo on pages other than the homepage. In many cases, this may simply be a smaller version of the homepage logo. If you just want the other journal pages to look the same as the homepage, just repeat what you did in Step 5.1. You can also add a favicon here, and it will appear in reader’s browser URL bar. The Alternate Header box allows you to add your own HTML to customize the header exactly as you wish.
Footers can also be added to the bottom of each page of your journal. It can be a good place to add your ISSN or a copyright statement.
By default, the most important menu navigation links will be included in your journal. However, if there are additional items to include, you may do so here. This can be an in-site link (for example, a Submission page), or an external link (for examplthe publishing institution’s home page). Additional links may be added using the “Add Item” button. Be sure to check the boxes if you are typing in plain text and a full URL. Otherwise, it will appear as ##SFU##.
Under Journal Layout you can choose a journal theme or upload a style sheet of your own. The listed themes will change the site colours, but will not affect layout. You can also modify the position of content blocks from left to right sidebars, move them up or down the sidebar, or eliminate them altogether.
A copy of the general OJS v.2.x style sheet is available at: http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/download/common.css You can also find a thorough guide on customizing your journal’s style and using themes in the online documentation.
Each of these descriptions will appear on your journal’s web site, on the right sidebar at the bottom by default. You can change the information here, and if you delete the information the link will automatically disappear from your site’s sidebar.
You can control the number of items to appear on any given list on your site (e.g., 100 items will appear 25 per page over 4 pages), and the number of page links shown at the bottom of any list (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, Next).
