Your stories as downloadable .Zip files
If your Shorthand plan offers .Zip exports of your stories, you have considerable flexibility in how you publish, host or distribute them.
As a publishing option, the .Zip file enables you to download a compiled version of a story, consisting of only client-side technologies (HTML, CSS, JS and media) and ready to use. The .Zip file includes everything your story requires to render. Because you have all the elements, you can easily run the content through any post processing you require (e.g., you might inject custom tracking code, site navigation, or change URLs).
When you're ready to publish your story:
Downloading the .Zip
Before downloading the .Zip, you will typically need to set the URL where the page will be hosted from. Without this URL, we cannot accurately set important page meta data, so information may not be displayed correctly when your page appears in search engines and social media, and navigation will not display if you're publishing a Shorthand Project.
If you're publishing an individual Shorthand Story, you'll set the URL from the PUBLISHED URL field under the Story Settings panel:
Once the Published URL has been set, select the Download Story button from the the Publishing panel:
If you're publishing a Shorthand project, you'll set the project's URL after selecting the Download Project button from the Publishing panel:
You will then begin a download of a .Zip folder that contains the static webpage code and media files, that you can host on your servers.
Once you have exported the static files, don't forget to:
Add your analytics code to the index.html (unless you already did this in Shorthand, which we would recommend)
Check the social sharing settings are correct (these can only be properly tested once on the final URL)
Check the story after uploading the export files to your server and configuring the CDN (if used) to ensure all content loads correctly.
To launch the story via an existing website, check out our Shorthand embed and story launcher.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding how your Shorthand story should be launched or delivered, please don't hesitate to contact us.