Trying to put "banner" ad on left side...

Hi, and thanks in advance for any help. I did try to search for previous posts on this topic and couldn't find any specific references. Also, I know some very basic PHP stuff, but I'm no genius at at. That being said....

Here is what I am trying to accomplish: Our forum has the "Who's Online," "Newest Members," etc., boxes configured to appear in the left column. I have created a new custom portal island called "Ad Placement." (The ad is a vertical strip, 160px x 600px.) When I go to add specific content to that island, I call it up, using the "Edit Custom Portal Island" function. The code displayed there is:

Code

/* PHP CODE HERE, IF NECESSARY */

/* DO NOT CHANGE THE LINE BELOW */
$body = <<<EOF
EOF;
/* DO NOT CHANGE THE LINE ABOVE */

I have tried adding my html below the last line of that code. That html reads:

Code

        <!-- Start My Ad Hack -->
        <table width="100%" class="t_outer" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
            <tr>
	            <td>
		            <table width="100%" class="t_inner" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1">
		                <tr>
               		        <td class="lefttdheader">
			                    Ad Placement
			    	        </td>
 			            </tr>
			            <tr>
			                <td class="leftalt-1">
			                    <map name="MY_AD">
				                <area href="url of advertiser" ALT="advertiser name" COORDS="0,492,160,515">
				                </map>
				                <img src="images/banner_ads/imagename.jpg" ALT="Advertiser Banner Ad" USEMAP="#MY_AD" WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="600">
			                </td>
			            </tr>
		            </table>
	            </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
        <!-- End My Ad Hack -->

The problem is that by adding that html there, on submission I get the following PHP error: "Parse error: parse error, unexpected '<' in /home/content/t/r/i/username/html/cache_builders/custom/portal_box_1.php on line 8". I have tried to remove that "<", and I still get a PHP error.

I've tried editing %%48^486^486F04FC%%portal_box_1.tpl.php by adding the html in there, and also I have tried editing portal_box_1.tpl through the admin function by adding the html, and nothing works.

Can someone please tell me, in terms that a PHP neophyte can understand, what I need to do to make this thing happen? Thanks for your help.

Welcome

You need to put your html between this line:

$body = <<

and this line:
EOF;

Example:

$body = <<

EOF;

Cool, thanks. I'll give it a try.

FYI, that worked. Thanks again.

Glad it worked for ya