AEM: Digital Asset Management

Digital Asset Management is the organization and publishing of digital images and document files from a central content hub. In AEM, files are uploaded into asset folders within the Digital Asset Manager (DAM) and organized and published from there.

Preparing

Images and files need to be edited and optimized before they are uploaded to the DAM.

Photos taken with a mobile phone or camera are usually too large for use on a website. Photos can be cropped and resized with photo editing software, like Adobe Photoshop, Photos in Windows 10, or online with Canva’s free photo editor at canva.com.

For assistance using photo editing software or finding photography resources, contact the Office of Marketing and Communications.

We recommend that image file sizes not exceed 500KB and document files not exceed 1MB.

Using optimization tools greatly reduces file sizes by removing hidden data in the image files. Image compression apps, like tinyjpg.com, provide a quick and easy way to reduce file size without losing any image quality. Save images as JPG/JPEG files.

Adobe Acrobat Pro, Foxit PDF Editor, PowerPoint, and online apps provide a quick and easy way to reduce the file size of documents. Document files need to be converted to PDFs.

Organizing

The DAM in AEM allows you to customize folders for your specific needs. Using folders, subfolders, and naming conventions will help you keep your files organized and make updating and cleaning up outdated content easier.

Use Proper File Names

Folder names should be simple words that everyone understands and are general enough in nature to help you remember what is inside. Avoid using any unclear or indecipherable abbreviations. When naming files, try to include important information in the file name, keep it short, and avoid any unclear or indecipherable abbreviations for the clearest readability.

Spaces and special characters have meanings to operating systems, so using them in file names causes broken links on your website. It is important to use all lowercase letters with hyphens between words when naming files. Do not use spaces. Example: this-is-my-filename.jpg

Avoid the following characters in file names: ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) + ` ; / \ : ? “ < > |[ ] { } or ,