Debbie,
Let me predicate my remarks by saying that if you have FP2003 and know how
to use it, then that is what you should probably be using for building your
site. It is specifically designed for building webs and depending on the
goals you have for your site, you will probably find it has fewer
limitations. With that said, let me answer the questions that you posted to
the regular newsgroup first.
The reason you did not see the option of using only web fonts when you went
to format > font, is that you were working in a print publication. This
option only shows up when you are working in a web publication. You can
convert to a web publication from a print publication, but the print
publication page size is different than a web page.
Shadow fonts are only available in a print publication because in a web
publication they are converted to an image. MSFT thus removed the options to
use shadow, emboss etc. That is also the reason why you should only use web
fonts. Other fonts will either be turned into a picture or a web friendly
font will be substituted when the user views your site and they do not have
that font installed on their computers. You loose control over what the
viewer will see.
If you don't care whether the text is converted to an image and that a text
reader will not be able to read it, nor will the words be read by search
engine webbots that index your site, then you can create a shadowed font
picture. This might be appropriate to use for a logo or in other limited
cases. Ideally you would create it not in FP, but in a third party drawing
or image editing program, and then inserted into your publication. However,
you can also create it using Publisher.
Open a blank print publication, insert a text box and use any font you want,
and apply the shadow. Then minimize the size of the text box borders by
dragging in the sides, top and bottom as close as you can get to the text
and still be able to see the text. Then right click the text box > Save as a
picture. In that dialog, just above the File name set the Resolution for Web
(96 dpi), and click the chevron in the field Save as Type and choose PNG
format. You can choose jpg if you want, but only gif and png support
transparency, and I found from my limited testing that the png version will
ultimately give you the best quality image albeit larger in file size. Now
you can insert your new image into your web publication.
As per width and height...there is no reason to reduce the standard length
of a web page from the 4608 pixel length as the page will automatically be
truncated directly below the last design element on the page when you
Publish to the Web and create your web files. That allows you to create
custom length pages on the fly depending on how much content is on the page.
As per the width, MSFT suggests three options if you look at the choices in
the templates in Publisher 2007. 600, 760 and 984 pixels wide. Publisher
2003 did not offer the 984 pixel width, but I think that with more and more
large monitors available they decided to make this option available.
Publisher produces fixed width and left justified pages by default, and some
find the more narrow pages do not look good on big screens. You can also
choose custom sizes but be careful about making the pages much wider as many
people will actually look at your pages in a window that may not be full
screened, or on monitors that are smaller such as laptops, and a very wide
page will require horizontal scrolling which is very irritating, and may
result in the person leaving your site. FWIW I prefer 760.
DavidF
