See also: Media Library: File Management Standards, File Naming Conventions and Best Practices

In Sitecore, the Media Library contains all the images and documents (PDFs, word documents, spreadsheets, etc.) that are used on or linked to from our website. In this tutorial we demonstrate how to add a new file to the media library and how to manually publish a media library item.

Video

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Outline

• Go to the media library
  
• Select the folder you want to upload your image to
• Click on "Upload Files (Advanced)"
• Browse and select the files you want to upload and click "Upload"
• Add alternative text to each image
• Make sure each image meets our file naming an accessibility standards

Step-by-step Guides

Adding a File to the Media Library

There are a couple ways to add new content to the Media Library, but the recommended way is as follows.

1. First re-size your images to be the correct size, optimize them for the web, and ensure they meet the File Naming Conventions and Best Practices.
2. Then, log into Sitecore.
3. In the bottom left corner of the page there will be three tabs. Content Editor will currently be selected. Click on the Media Library tab.
4. Next, navigate to the directory that contains your content. For most content pages this will be somewhere under the 'Bus' directory (which should mimic the normal content tree).
5. Once you've selected the directory your content should live in you will see a couple options, if you have access to the directory. If you want to create a new folder click on the New Folder icon. To add a new image or document, use the Upload Files (Advanced) option.
   
   
   
   
6. At this point you'll be prompted to select the files. After selecting each file click "Open".
7. Alternative text should be added to all images. PDFs and other documents do not need alternate text.
   
   1. Click on each image in the "Uploaded Media Library items:" field to open the item/click "Lock and Edit" and add alternative text, and click "Save and Close".
   2. The alternate text should be populated, and will help those who can't see the images, for whatever reason, understand what they convey.
      
      
      
      
8. The other options can be left with their default values. 
9. Then, when all your files have been added click "Upload".
10. You can now switch back to the Content Editor tab and add your image(s) to your content. At this time, verify that the alternate text is correct, and if needed for this particular page, tweak as needed.
    
    

Manually Publishing Media Items

For the majority of media items you do not need to worry about publishing them, since they're automatically published when you publish the page that uses or links to them.

However, in some cases you may need to publish a media item manually, such as for the current newsletter generator.

To manually publish a media item navigate to the item and click the Publish Media Item button in the WSoB tab.

After clicking, you should see a message and within 5 minutes the media should be published. If updating an existing item, a hard refresh (Ctrl + F5 on Windows) may be necessary.

How-to Add Alternative Text to Media Library Items

1. Go to each item in the Media Library.
2. Click "Lock and Edit".
3. Add alternative text to the "Alt" field.
4. Click "Save".
5. Click "Publish Media Library item".

Learn More

• The Media Library - Sitecore documentation on the media library. 

Next Tutorial

• Media Library: File Management Standards - Learn how to organize your files so that they are more easily managed.

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