Publisher 97 FAQ

Web Publishing With Publisher 97 FAQ


	Disclaimer: The following is not an official Microsoft publication. It may be freely redistributed only in it's original unedited, unabridged form. This document will continue to be updated as necessary. If you have any comments or suggestions, please use the FAQ Survey Form . This document was created with Microsoft Publisher 97. NEW! Check out the list of recommended books that will help you with Microsoft Publisher. 1) Why should I use Microsoft Publisher 97 for my web page? 2) How do I get my animated GIF's to work? 3) How do I add music to my web page? 4) Why do my photos look so bad? 5) Why does my web page scroll over to the right? 6) How do I add a counter? 7) My web site has several pages. How do I create a separate background on some pages? 8) How do I make different length web pages? 9) How do I create links within the same page? 10) Where can I see other web sites created with Publisher 97? 11) I want to update only one page on my web site and I've done a lot of editing with Notepad. What's the easiest way to do this? 12) How do I rename the pages of my web site so that they don't say "page2", "page3", etc? 13) When I try to publish my web site, I receive the following message, "Publisher cannot create your online document." How do I fix that? 14) How do I get traffic at my web site? 15) Are there places that will host my web site for free? 16) Are there any free FTP programs that I can use to upload my web site to the web server? 17) I could not find the answer to my question here. What do I do now? The Answers:- 1) Why should I use Microsoft Publisher 97 for my web page? Because you don't need to learn HTML (hypertext markup language) to create a decent looking web page. However, you might need to do some light editing of your HTML document with Notepad to add some enhanced features to your site. Top of page 2) How do I get my animated GIF's to work? There are two ways. One is easier than the other. If you want to know the hard way, scroll down to question 4. The same method can be used with animated GIF's. Here's the easy way:- i) Publish your web site to a folder. ii) Open your web site with your browser. Find the GIF's that should be animated, and use your right mouse button to click on them. Go to Properties, and find the name of the GIF (e.g. img7.gif). iii) Delete the GIF from the folder. iv) Transfer the animated GIF file to the folder where your web page is. v) Now, use your right mouse button to click on the file. Choose Rename and rename the file the same name as the file that was deleted. vi) Hit "Reload" or "Refresh" on the taskbar of your browser. You will see that the GIF is animated. Top of Page 3) How do I add music to my web page? The following instructions will allow background music to play in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 and up, as well as Netscape Navigator 2.0 and up. i) Publish your web site to a folder. ii) Open your web site with your browser. Go to View/Source on your browser's taskbar. iii) Paste the following code after the "<body>" line near the top of your document. <embed src="song.mid" autostart=true hidden=true> Replace "song.mid" with the actual file name. NOTE: The actual <body> tag will look something like <body bgcolor="#b2b2b2" link="#009966" vlink="#009966" text="#000080" background="back.gif">. iv) Save your document. Make sure that the music file is added to the folder before you upload your web site. Top of Page 4) Why do my photos look so bad? They look bad because Publisher 97 will convert your beautiful bitmap and JPEG files into 256 color GIF's. Here's the fix:- i) Publish your web site to a folder. ii) Open your web page with your browser. Right mouse click on the photos that you want to change back to the original files. Go to Properties and note the file name (e.g. img7.gif). iii) Go to View/Source on your browser. Scroll down and find the file name that you want to edit. Replace it with the actual file name of the photo (e.g. maxclown.jpg). Now save your document. iv) Delete the GIF that you are going to replace. v) Place the photo file in the folder that contains your web site. vi) Hit "Referesh" or "Reload" on the taskbar of your browser. Looking good. Top of Page 5) Why does my web page scroll over to the right? Publisher calculates it's page width using left and right margins. When images are placed out of alignment Publisher miscalculates the page width. Here is the fix: i) Set Publisher to snap to ruler. ii) Choose a ruler line you want to use as you outside margin on the left and right. iii) Line up all of your outside objects (text or images) to that same vertical rule mark on the left and right. The part that gets tricky is when you have an object in the middle of your page without something on the sides of it. Here is what to do: i) It is best to try to extend your text boxes to the outside edge, this will keep text from turning to graphics. ii) You can use empty text boxes for space fillers next to images or text that is not centered. Top of Page 6) How do I add a counter? You will need to insert the HTML code for your counter into your document using Notepad. If you're like me, you got the code from your ISP. The method that I'm going to describe will look like this:- "You are visitor number ##### since mm/dd/yy." The "#####" is your counter. i) In Publisher add a small GIF file in the center of your page. This is being used as a place holder. ii) Add a text box to the left of the GIF file that says "You are visitor number" and right justify it. iii) Add a text box that says "since mm/dd/yy." on the immediate right of the GIF file and left justify it. iv) Publish your web site to a folder. v) Open your web site with your browser. Use your right mouse button and click on the picture that you are using as a place holder. Go to Properties and find the name of it (e.g. img7.gif). vi) Now go to View/Source on your browser's taskbar. Find the code for the place holder GIF, and delete the entire source code for it. The source code you will delete will look like this:- <img width=79 height=43 border=0 src="img7.gif"> vii) Copy and paste the code of your counter in the same place as the code that was just deleted. It'll look something like this:- <IMG SRC="http://www.yourisp.com/cgi-bin/count.cgi?df=userid"> viii) Save your document. ix) Hit "Refresh" or "Reload" on your browser. NOTE: Since the counter resides on your ISP's server, you will not be able to see the actual count unless you are connected to your ISP when viewing your HTML document. Top of Page 7) My web site has several pages. How do I create a separate background on some pages? There are two methods. The second method will only work if your ISP will set up sub folders for you to publish your web site to. Thanks to Robert Haviland for providing the second method. See Robert's "The Pages of Publisher Pages". Method 1: i) Publish your web site to a folder. ii) Preview the page you want to edit the background on in your browser (e.g. page8) iii) Go to View/Source on your browser. iv) Find "back.gif" in your HTML document and change it to reference the background file (e.g. brick.gif). Save the change. v) Add the background file to the folder. Method 2: i) Setup your site with an opening section. That from which everything will grow. Could be c:\root. All intros, purpose for site, quick info goes here. ii) Think about what you want to talk about. iii) Create new folders for each thought. Could be c:\root\baseball, c:\root\wine ... iv) When you finish this section, save the pub file somewhere else. v) Publish to folder. Specify the folder of your thought. vi) You can now FTP to your web site, in these same folder names. Once this is done, to change backgrounds is simple, just do it from the toolbar. No editing of the HTML, ever. Top of Page 8) How do I make different length web pages? Thanks to Ian Fielder for this question and subsequent answer. This is how I do it:- i) Open the html document with Notepad and hand edit the HTML. ii) When you have done this you then need to cut out a bit of code near the bottom of the page of code to shorten the pages. It looks something like this:- </td> <td></td> ............................................................ CUT HERE </tr> <tr> <td height=852></td> <td colspan=16></td> ............................................................. CUT HERE </tr> </table> </body> </html> iii) Delete the bit between the "CUT HERE". NOTE: If you have a large text box with an unusual font near the page bottom it might not work too well. You really need to carry out this operation before adding any HTML to the page bottom e.g. links to your web server etc. Click here to see Ian Fielder's web site. Ian's web site features pages of different lengths. Top of Page 9) How do I create links within the same page? Thanks to Ian Fielder for this question and the answer. Click here to visit Ian's web site. In this example, a question will be hyperlinked to the answer. i) Highlight the question and hyperlink it to "A document already on the Internet". The document will be called "#answer". Get the idea? ii) Publish your web site to a folder and open up your document with your browser. Go to View/Source on your taskbar. iii) Find the text that you are linking to. It'll look like this: <br> a) Because it is the right thing to do.<br> iv) Right next to the <br> above the text, add <a name="answer">. The HTML code will look like this when you are done.. <br><a name=answer> a) Because it is the right thing to do.<br> v) Save your document, then hit Reload or Refresh on your browser. Top of Page 10) Where can I see other web sites created with Publisher 97? Go to the "The Pages of Publisher 97 Pages" . Top of Page 11) I want to update only one page on my web site and I've done a lot of editing with Notepad. I really don't want to go back and edit every page. What's the easiest way to do this? Easy. i) Publish your web site to a folder other than the folder that you normally publish to. ii) Open the page that you want to edit with your browser . iii) Edit your document with Notepad and save the changes. iv) Now, transfer that page to the folder that contains your web site. You will be asked if you want to replace the previous page. "Yes", you do. v) Copy any files into the folder associated with that page that have changed. Top of Page 12) How do I rename the pages of my web site so that they don't say "page2", "page3", etc? i) Decide what you want to name your pages (e.g. "links"). ii) To create a link to that page in Publisher, you would put links.html as the URL for any references to that page in your web site, leaving out the "http". iii) Once you are finished creating the links to the named pages, publish your web site to a folder. iv) Find the HTML document that you want to rename (e.g. page2). Use your right mouse button to click on it. v) Choose "Rename" and change the file to the desired name (e.g. links). NOTE: Do not rename the "index" document. It might present you with problems with your ISP. Top of Page 13) When I try to publish my web site, I receive the following message, "Publisher cannot create your online document." How do I fix that? i) Go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Grphflt and find the file called Gifimp32.flt . Use your right mouse button to click on it. Choose Rename, and rename the file to Gifimp32.old . ii) Insert the Publisher CD-ROM. Go to D:\Shared\Grphflt, where D is your CD-ROM drive. Copy the file called Gifimp32.flt into C:\ProgramFiles\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Grphflt. If you have Publisher on diskettes, run the setup.exe file and choose Reinstall. If the steps that I have detailed above do not work, call MS Support and have them walk you through the Registry edit that you will need. Top of Page 14) How do I get traffic at my web site? i) Go to www.submit-it.com and register your web site. You will be able to register it with several search engines for free. ii) Go to "The Pages of Publisher Pages" and ask to have your site added. iii) If your site is non commercial and is pertinent to a particular newsgroup, post an announcement. iv) Find a web site with a similar interest and offer a reciprocal link to your site. v) Include your web site address in your sig line when sending e-mail or posting to newsgroups. Top of Page 15) Are there places that will host my web site for free? Yes, there are three places that will do this. Geocities Fortune City Free Web Page Service by CBAN Note: You will have to display an ad banner in return for the free space on their web servers. Top of Page 16) Are there any free FTP programs that I can use to upload my web site to the web server? These are both free:- Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard WS_FTP I use Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard and I'm satisfied with it's performance. Top of Page 17) I could not find the answer to my question here. What do I do now? You have several options:- i) Search the Microsoft Technical Support Knowledge Base. ii) Post your question in the Publisher newsgroup. It's at microsoft.public.publisher. iii) The old fashioned way. Give Microsoft tech support a call. If your product is registered you will receive unlimited no-charge support if you call (425) 635-7140. Top of Page Happy publishing!!!! Dan