What is a page?

A page is a collection of text, to-do lists, images, or files. A page can have any subject as its theme. Some sample themes: “My trip to Paris” or “Furniture I eventually want to buy” or “Things I want to do this summer” or “My favorite quotes” or “Ideas for the bathroom renovation” or “People we need to interview for the job.” Basically, a page is a place to collect your ideas, actions, thoughts, tasks, etc. The Backpack examples page has more ideas to get your juices flowing.

How is my "Home page" different than other pages?

Your home page can’t be deleted and it’s called out separately in the sidebar with a larger link. Use your home page to keep track of all your stuff that’s “top of mind.” Or stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Or stuff that you need to deal with now.

Your home page is great to use as your web browser start page — this way every time you open a new browser window you’ll see your Home page with a list of the things you need to do, notes that you need to see, files you need quick access to, etc.

How do I add stuff to a page?

The top of each page includes a series of links.

Clicking a link adds that section to the current page. For example, if you want to add an image to a page, click the “Picture gallery” link. If you want to add a list to the page, click the “List” link.

How do I edit items on a page or change the name of a page?

Once you’ve added content to a page, just hover your mouse over the content and you’ll see an edit link to the left of the content.

Click the “Edit” link to change the content.

To rename a page, just hover your mouse over the page title and a “Rename” link will appear to the left. Click this link to change the title.

How do I move items around on a page?

Once you’ve added content to a page, just hover your mouse over the content and you’ll see the drag icon (four connected arrows) to the left of that item.

Click the drag icon and hold the mouse button down while you drag the item to the location you want. You can drag items within a section, to another section, or you can drag an entire section around the page.

What are tags?

Think of a tag as a simple category, label, or keyword that lets you categorize your Backpack pages any way you want. Then, when you click a tag, you can see all the other pages that have that tag. It’s a great way to keep your pages loosely grouped in a way that makes sense to you.

For example, if you have a page called “Sales meetings” you might want to tag that page “business, meeting, sales, office” or whatever you feel best describes that page. Or, if you have a Backpack page for your car, you might want to tag it “car, BMW, auto, transportation.”

Tag your pages any way you want. There are no rules or right ways or wrong ways — there are only your ways. While someone else might tag a business-related page with “business” you might tag it “work” — either one is fine.

How do I add and use tags?

To add a tag, click the “Tags” link at the top of the page you want to tag.

Then add your tags and click the “Add these tags” button. Separate each tag with a space and use quotes for tags with more than one word (“new business”).

Once you’ve tagged a page (you can add as many tags as you want to a page), you’ll see the tags at the top of the page.

Clicking a tag will show all the other pages with that tag. Or, you can click the “My Pages” link in your sidebar. On that page you’ll see a list of all the tags you’ve created.

Click a tag and you’ll see the list of pages that match that tag.

How do I remove a page from (or add a page to) the sidebar?

All pages are added to the sidebar by default. To remove a page, click on the page, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the “Remove from sidebar” link. (If the page isn’t currently in the sidebar, the link will say “Add to sidebar.”)

Removing a page from the sidebar does NOT delete the page. You can still access it by clicking on the “My pages” link.

There you’ll see a list of pages that aren’t in the sidebar. To add a page back to the sidebar, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the “Add to sidebar” link.

Can I email content to a page?

Yes. Each page has its own email address. Scroll down to the bottom of a page and you’ll see an email address. If you send email to that address, the email will be added as a note to the page. Anyone with this email address can send content to the page. Clicking “renew address” will generate a new random email address for the page which replaces the previous email address. Get more detailed information about emailing Backpack.

What does the little green icon mean on the My Pages screen?

This icon means you are sharing this page with other people.

What types of files/images can I upload?

Images must be in PNG, JPG, or GIF format. You can upload other files in any format.

Can I upload a folder?

To upload a folder or directory, you’ll need to compress (aka zip, stuff, tar) it into a single file. Then you can upload the compressed/archived file. You or others can then decompress this file after download. It will retain the original folder’s structure.

How can I format text (bold, bullets, italics, etc.)?

Backpack uses Textile formatting so you can use simple, easy-to-write codes to format text. Type the codes in your text and you will see the results after clicking Save.

Some examples:
*bold* → bold
_italic_ → italic

Check this Textile Quick Reference guide to see how to easily make lists, headers, and more.