8/24/22 Release: Text editor upgrade, request to cancel notices, save card payment methods, and more

Drafting notices in Column just got easier! Column’s text editor now reflects the column width, font, and formatting features of a newspaper’s template. As you type, the text editor will show a dotted line indicating the width of your notice, so you can see the exact parameters of your notice as it will appear in print. We heard your feedback that it was frustrating to draft notices when the text editor didn’t match what you had in your original document, or what you ended up getting with the printed notice. Now we’ve eliminated the discrepancies. Your text will be aligned, stylized, and spaced the same in the text editor as it is in the actual notice, so what you type in your text box reflects what you’ll actually get. Your notices will have never looked better.  

Now, when advertisers click CANCEL NOTICE after deadline (or after paying their invoice), Column will automatically email the publisher with the advertiser’s request and a reason for the cancellation. Before, advertisers had to reach out to Column Support if they wanted to cancel a notice after ad deadline, and Column Support had to then contact the publisher on the advertiser’s behalf for approval. But advertisers shouldn’t have to wait for our Support team to get them in touch with their publisher — customer service can be more direct and efficient than that. Click here for more information.

In addition to saving bank accounts for ACH, advertisers can now store credit or debit cards in Column, making it easier to pay invoices especially for recurring customers. No one likes having to enter card information every day they pay an invoice by card. Now, advertisers can opt-in to save card information for future payments, and can even choose to share that saved card information with other members in their organization. We think this will save recurring customers a good amount of time, and will make the customer experience of placing notices faster and easier. Click here for more information.

In the Customers section of My Organization settings, publishers can find a button to download csv files containing all their customers. Now it’s easy to contact all your public notice customers at once or view all customers at a glance. And better yet, when you download your customer list, it’s alphabetized — with customer names, organization names, and email addresses.

There are now new buttons in your text editor to increase line indentations! As you know, many public notices include indented content — paragraphs “tabbed” in to appear offset from the main body text. But it hasn’t always been easy to create and format these notices in Column, and some of you have told us that you’ve resorted to creating your own methods, like pressing the space bar several times to create indentations. Luckily, we’ve added a “block quote” button to our toolbar to make creating indentations much easier. Having more tools at your disposal for formatting notices — especially ones with complicated layouts — should make your typing experience and placement process a bit better.  Click here for more information.