Can I rename the home page from index.htm?

[reiki plus]

I created a web site in Pub 2003. For the most part I am very happy with it.
I recently recieved an email from a computer access and useability testing
person telling me there are problems with my website in browsers other than
IE. He captured a picture of my home page and showed me problems, which he
identifies as formatting problems, while viewing with FF and other browsers.
So that is part of my problem which I am hopeful to resolve but the initial
problem that I want to address is that my I want my home page to be renamed
to be relevant to my business. I see that when my web site is open and I
click save to favorites it wants to book mark my web site as index.htm. How
do others get there business name or other relevant text to show in the
bookmark. I have read and reread the threads as well as clicked on numerous
links in the threads to try to educate myself more without posting a new
thread but have yet to find a definitive answer to this. My web site is
www.reikibc.com. I would like my home page to say reikibc.com/home or
reikibc.com/home/index.htm or some other relevant relationship to my business
name while keeping my home page identifiable by search engines as the page to
enter my site from. Any help out there ?

 

[MAURH]

To name your 'Home Page' with the name of your choice, from the home page in
your pub. doc., go to >Tools>Web page Options and in the window that opens
enter your business name or whatever you choose in the Page Title box. When
you save the site to Favourites it should save as this name. This window
also gives you the opportunity to enter keywords for search engines to pick
up your site.

Maureen

 

[Rob Giordano [MS MVP]]

You should leave it the way it is.

Standard default home page names are: default.htm, default.html, index.htm,
index.html the most commonly used one is "index". If you want something
other than the default server home page names you have to have your add the
name then you'd need to change it in Publisher. There is no good reason to
create a custom home page name.

Your web address reads as it should: http://www.reikibc.com/ how is that
not relevant to your business...I'm not sure I understand the problem.

 

[Rob Giordano [MS MVP]]

Oh I see you want a page Title...MAURH's got you covered on that.

 

[DavidF]

In addition to what Maureen said, you can also add a "description" of the
site/page along with the "title" and "keywords" on this dialog window. The
"description" will be displayed along with the "title" when your site is
indexed and then found by using the search engines.

As per the cross browser compatibility issues, I would suggest that you do
download and install FireFox at least for testing your website. If you can
get your site to look good in both IE and FF, then it will also work in
Opera, Safari and Chrome...the other major browsers.

FireFox (7.7 MB): http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
The install is easy. Just be sure to choose not to make FireFox your default
browser when asked during the installation. Then when you Publish to the
Web, direct your web files to your computer where you can find them easily
such as a folder on your desktop. Then go to the index.htm file, right
click, open with, and choose FireFox to test. Or you can open FF and go to
File > Open and browse to your index.htm file. This of course also works
with the other .htm files in the index_files folder.

I see on your home page that the text of your menu items are rendering just
slightly larger in FF than in IE which is resulting in the words wrapping.
Make your text box just a bit wider until that does not happen.

I also see that the links at the bottom of the page are not working. Try
going to Edit > Select All > Arrange > Ungroup and test your links again.
This will also fix a rendering problem with IE8 and Publisher 2003 webs. All
'grouped' design elements on a page will not render in IE8. Ungrouping
should be done whether it fixes the bottom navbar links or not.

If 'ungrouping' doesn't fix the links, then sometimes using a fill color in
a text box will kill hyperlinked text, as it turns the whole text box into
an image. If this is the case, the fix is to either not use a fill color, or
remove the fill color from the main text box with the linked text. Create
another text box exactly the same size...even on top of the original text
box and insert the fill color in this second text box, and then go to
Arrange > Order > Send to Back. Now you will have the second color filled
text box behind the original text box without the color and when you Publish
to the Web the links will work and you will have the visual effect you were
trying to get.

One way to test to see if text has been converted to an image is to try to
left click, drag to select text on the web page. If you can't then it has
been converted to an image. Also you can look at the index_files folder in
thumbnail view and spot the text boxes that have been converted to an image.
This can be a quick way to check to see if you missed any.

I also notice that your 'PayPal' and 'View Cart' are overlapping on the home
page when viewed with FF. I am guessing that you inserted the code snippets
for these via a code fragment box. Sometimes the code fragment boxes do not
line up exactly the same way as you see it or have it arranged on your
Publisher page. You just need to adjust the size of the code fragment box
and move them around until they look ok after you produce your web page.
Kind of a trial and error approach, and another reason why you need to have
FF on your computer so you can test until things look ok.

I did not take the time to view the rest of your site, but if after fixing
text that has been converted to images and tweaking the layout to
accommodate FF rendering text slightly larger, if you find other things that
don't work in FF, please post back with links to the pages and specific
descriptions of the problems and we will help you with solutions. Most of
the issues with Pub web pages not rendering correctly can be fixed by
adjusting the formatting and tweaking the layout but you should be able to
get your site to be cross browser compatible with a little work.

DavidF

 

[MAURH]

Reiki Plus,

Thinking about your formatting problem, I checked your site in FF and you do
seem to have some items that have shifted from their position. I'm not too
sure how to resolve this but I do know that this can sometimes happen if you
use certain features. Word Wrap is one that can't be used in web
publications and if you use a non web friendly font it can cause problems.
If you use special paragraph formatting or line spacing this can also cause
your spacing to shift. Some people have a problem if they fill a text box
with colour and I notice your 'Back' links, which are out of line, are in a
coloured box.

So it may be worth checking these things out first. If none of these are
your problem, then post back. I'm sure someone who may be able to help more
will be along soon ....stay tuned

Maureen

 

[reiki plus]

Hi Maureen,

Thanks for your feedback. Okay, I opened the pub.doc and followed your
directions to change the text in the title box, clicked okay, republished to
the web, opened my browser, opened my web site, saved to favorites.....it
didn't work. In the list of favorites it still says index.htm

 

[MAURH]

This may sound like a really silly suggestion, so forgive me if I'm wrong,
but after you put the name in the title box in the Web Page Options window,
clicked 'ok' and that had closed, did you save the changes to your pub.
doc? In your source code the 'Title' is still showing Index.htm.

Maureen

 

[reiki plus]

Hi Maureen,

Thanks for your feedback. Okay, I opened the pub.doc and followed your
directions to change the text in the title box, clicked okay, republished to
the web, opened my browser, opened my web site, saved to favorites.....it
didn't work. In the list of favorites it still says index.htm

I feel like I am going around in a circle trying to resolve this. Before I
entered the tread with this problem I had actually tried this method and it
had not worked then either. I thought I may have missed a stage so have very
carefully followed your directions and still there is no change.

I see that the address bar reads correctly as reikibc.com, but the tab that
opens says index.htm. Right now I have two tabs open; discussion groups home
(this site) and my site. The tab for this discussion group reads "Discussion
Groups Home" and my tab reads Index.htm! I wonder if I have not conveyed my
problem correctly. I want my tab to NOT say index.htm but rather I would
prefer my business name Spirit Works Holistic Healing so that when it is
saved to favs it will say my business name. I think that is what I have been
saying all along but maybe in the off chance that is not what I have said
then you can now point me in the right direction.

 

[DavidF]

You have not changed the title in the code of your home page. Look at your
site: http://www.reikibc.com/ Now go to view > source. Here is the first
part of the html code for the page:

<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"
xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice"
xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">

<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<link rel=File-List href="index_files/filelist.xml">
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
..shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<meta name="description" content="Reiki and Shamanic Healing">
<meta name="keywords"
content="Holistic Healing, Reiki, Shamanism, Animal Reiki, Reiki Workshops,
Shamanic Workshops, Animal Reiki Workshops">
<title>Index.htm</title>
<style>
<!--
-----------

Notice That the title is still 'Index.htm'. As a result when you try to save
this as a Favorite, you are going to get that as the name.

Once again go to Tools > Web Page Options and change the Page title. Save
the change, Publish to the Web and produce new html files, and upload the
new index.htm file and the new index_files folder. Note...it is possible
that you have not been successfully overwriting the old index.htm file on
your server. Either delete the old files on the server, or rename the
"index.htm" file on your web server to "index.old", and then upload the new
file.

Bottom line is until you change the code on your home page to something
other than "<title>Index.htm</title>" then you are going to continue to get
"Index.htm" for the name to be saved when you try to save as a favorite.

And don't forget that the page title is different for each page...

DavidF

 

[reiki plus]

Hi David,

It turns out that the problem was with my server. Some time ago they had
problems and changed how to upload to them. However, they did not send this
info out to me so I have been continueing to upload as I had been before. I
had been making the changes to the title as recommended as well as some of
the changes that you recommended for compatibility formatting only to find
that none of my changes have been overwriting the old files. I trouble
shooted this with the person who originally set up my site and who also uses
the same server as me and he identified that I was not following the new
upload format. He identified where my problem was.....all of the changes I
had been making were infact there but not loaded into the newly named file
that my server wanted me to load into. Needless to say hours of making
changes was not to no avail. Alls I had to do was delet the file with my
changes that was sitting on the server, upload my changes again to the new
file name and voila, there are all of my changes. Yup, the name of my home
page is now as I want it to be

I followed your advice and down loaded FF to view my changes as I go along.
I have started to enact some small format changes and test the waters on my
first page. As you suggested, I took the fill color out of the text boxes
that contain links at the bottom of this page, created another identical size
text box, placed it over the first, filled it with my color and then sent it
to the back and voila, my links in that text box now work in FF!!! This is
just the start of the task to make changes to all of my pages but it looks
like your advice will serve me well as the tester that I did on my first page
has worked well. I printer out your advice and will follow it to make further
adjustments. I can't tell you how relieved I am that the changes are working
and that I am seeing the changes now on FF. Thank you very much.

You have not changed the title in the code of your home page. Look at your
site: http://www.reikibc.com/ Now go to view > source. Here is the first
part of the html code for the page:

<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"
xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice"
xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">

<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<link rel=File-List href="index_files/filelist.xml">
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
..shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<meta name="description" content="Reiki and Shamanic Healing">
<meta name="keywords"
content="Holistic Healing, Reiki, Shamanism, Animal Reiki, Reiki Workshops,
Shamanic Workshops, Animal Reiki Workshops">
<title>Index.htm</title>
<style>
<!--
-----------

Notice That the title is still 'Index.htm'. As a result when you try to save
this as a Favorite, you are going to get that as the name.

Once again go to Tools > Web Page Options and change the Page title. Save
the change, Publish to the Web and produce new html files, and upload the
new index.htm file and the new index_files folder. Note...it is possible
that you have not been successfully overwriting the old index.htm file on
your server. Either delete the old files on the server, or rename the
"index.htm" file on your web server to "index.old", and then upload the new
file.

Bottom line is until you change the code on your home page to something
other than "<title>Index.htm</title>" then you are going to continue to get
"Index.htm" for the name to be saved when you try to save as a favorite.

And don't forget that the page title is different for each page...

DavidF

I feel like I am going around in a circle trying to resolve this. Before I
entered the tread with this problem I had actually tried this method and
it
had not worked then either. I thought I may have missed a stage so have
very
carefully followed your directions and still there is no change.

I see that the address bar reads correctly as reikibc.com, but the tab
that
opens says index.htm. Right now I have two tabs open; discussion groups
home
(this site) and my site. The tab for this discussion group reads
"Discussion
Groups Home" and my tab reads Index.htm! I wonder if I have not conveyed
my
problem correctly. I want my tab to NOT say index.htm but rather I would
prefer my business name Spirit Works Holistic Healing so that when it is
saved to favs it will say my business name. I think that is what I have
been
saying all along but maybe in the off chance that is not what I have said
then you can now point me in the right direction.

.

 

[MAURH]

Reiko Plus,

I do understand what you are trying to do, but the way to change the page
title is by going into the Web Page Options box. For some reason this is not
working for you. It sounds like it's still not picking up your changes. Are
you deleting your old files when you publish the new ones? I always delete
the old files before I publish the new, and then I'm sure of getting rid of
any old instructions.

Maureen

 

[Rob Giordano [MS MVP]]

Push the F5 button when viewing your index page....it reads correctly in the
tab you're just probably looking at a cached view of the old page.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Giordano
Microsoft MVP Expression Web

 

[DavidF]

Thanks for posting back. I am glad you figured that out.

As per working through the rest of your site to get it to look the same in
both IE and FF, I offered just a couple of the most common reasons for the
pages to render differently that showed up on your home page. If those
methods don't work then look at how you have the text and the paragraphs
formatted. The basic problem is that there are things you can do with a
printed page that you can not do with a Publisher web page. The print
formatting just does not convert to html. As Maureen pointed out, word wrap
around pictures does not work in a web page. Special line spacing of more
than normal, indents, bulleted lists, etc are all likely to result in your
pages rendering inconsistently with different browsers. Sometimes the only
thing you can do is to strip off the special formatting and work with just
manually inserting special characters and symbols instead of bullets, use
both regular and hard returns, only single line spacing, don't use "fancy"
borders...they can also result in the text box converting to an image, but
once again you can put the fancy borders on a second text box and put that
text box behind the first. Note you can also insert fill color into code
fragment boxes sometimes. Etc, etc....the point is now that you have FireFox
and know how to test your pages in both IE and FF, once you figure out what
you can and cannot do you should be able to get your pages looking good in
both browsers, and as a result they will also look good in Opera, Safari and
Chrome...or at least this has been the general rule we have found. Have fun
and just realize that you are working in two mediums...print and web and
sometimes you just have to change your formatting, design or layout in order
to get the effect you want and cross browser compatibility.

Post back if you can't figure something out...for the most part we have been
able to figure out how to work around most all the cross browser issues.

DavidF

Hi David,

It turns out that the problem was with my server. Some time ago they had
problems and changed how to upload to them. However, they did not send
this
info out to me so I have been continueing to upload as I had been before.
I
had been making the changes to the title as recommended as well as some of
the changes that you recommended for compatibility formatting only to find
that none of my changes have been overwriting the old files. I trouble
shooted this with the person who originally set up my site and who also
uses
the same server as me and he identified that I was not following the new
upload format. He identified where my problem was.....all of the changes I
had been making were infact there but not loaded into the newly named file
that my server wanted me to load into. Needless to say hours of making
changes was not to no avail. Alls I had to do was delet the file with my
changes that was sitting on the server, upload my changes again to the new
file name and voila, there are all of my changes. Yup, the name of my home
page is now as I want it to be

I followed your advice and down loaded FF to view my changes as I go
along.
I have started to enact some small format changes and test the waters on
my
first page. As you suggested, I took the fill color out of the text boxes
that contain links at the bottom of this page, created another identical
size
text box, placed it over the first, filled it with my color and then sent
it
to the back and voila, my links in that text box now work in FF!!! This is
just the start of the task to make changes to all of my pages but it looks
like your advice will serve me well as the tester that I did on my first
page
has worked well. I printer out your advice and will follow it to make
further
adjustments. I can't tell you how relieved I am that the changes are
working
and that I am seeing the changes now on FF. Thank you very much.

You have not changed the title in the code of your home page. Look at
your
site: http://www.reikibc.com/ Now go to view > source. Here is the first
part of the html code for the page:

<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"
xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice"
xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">

<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<link rel=File-List href="index_files/filelist.xml">
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
..shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<meta name="description" content="Reiki and Shamanic Healing">
<meta name="keywords"
content="Holistic Healing, Reiki, Shamanism, Animal Reiki, Reiki
Workshops,
Shamanic Workshops, Animal Reiki Workshops">
<title>Index.htm</title>
<style>
<!--
-----------

Notice That the title is still 'Index.htm'. As a result when you try to
save
this as a Favorite, you are going to get that as the name.

Once again go to Tools > Web Page Options and change the Page title. Save
the change, Publish to the Web and produce new html files, and upload the
new index.htm file and the new index_files folder. Note...it is possible
that you have not been successfully overwriting the old index.htm file on
your server. Either delete the old files on the server, or rename the
"index.htm" file on your web server to "index.old", and then upload the
new
file.

Bottom line is until you change the code on your home page to something
other than "<title>Index.htm</title>" then you are going to continue to
get
"Index.htm" for the name to be saved when you try to save as a favorite.

And don't forget that the page title is different for each page...

DavidF

I redid the process as follows ....open pub.doc>tools>web page
option>confirmed correct text in title box>ok>within pub.doc saved
changes>published to the web>opened browser>opened website (not from
cache)>saved to favorites>opened fav list...still says index.htm.

I feel like I am going around in a circle trying to resolve this.
Before I
entered the tread with this problem I had actually tried this method
and
it
had not worked then either. I thought I may have missed a stage so have
very
carefully followed your directions and still there is no change.

I see that the address bar reads correctly as reikibc.com, but the tab
that
opens says index.htm. Right now I have two tabs open; discussion
groups
home
(this site) and my site. The tab for this discussion group reads
"Discussion
Groups Home" and my tab reads Index.htm! I wonder if I have not
conveyed
my
problem correctly. I want my tab to NOT say index.htm but rather I
would
prefer my business name Spirit Works Holistic Healing so that when it
is
saved to favs it will say my business name. I think that is what I have
been
saying all along but maybe in the off chance that is not what I have
said
then you can now point me in the right direction.

.

 

[DavidF]

Two more things.

Sometimes you can insert a fill color in a text box and get it to work...I
haven't been able to figure out the rule yet, and you just have to test to
see if it converts you text to an image. If it does, then use the workaround
of putting a second color filled text box behind the plain one. Also some
plain borders work where 'fancy' ones don't. Just test...

Don't use the Master Page feature...another feature that works great for
print docs, but messes things up with web publications.

Nuff said...

DavidF

Thanks for posting back. I am glad you figured that out.

As per working through the rest of your site to get it to look the same in
both IE and FF, I offered just a couple of the most common reasons for the
pages to render differently that showed up on your home page. If those
methods don't work then look at how you have the text and the paragraphs
formatted. The basic problem is that there are things you can do with a
printed page that you can not do with a Publisher web page. The print
formatting just does not convert to html. As Maureen pointed out, word
wrap around pictures does not work in a web page. Special line spacing of
more than normal, indents, bulleted lists, etc are all likely to result in
your pages rendering inconsistently with different browsers. Sometimes the
only thing you can do is to strip off the special formatting and work with
just manually inserting special characters and symbols instead of bullets,
use both regular and hard returns, only single line spacing, don't use
"fancy" borders...they can also result in the text box converting to an
image, but once again you can put the fancy borders on a second text box
and put that text box behind the first. Note you can also insert fill
color into code fragment boxes sometimes. Etc, etc....the point is now
that you have FireFox and know how to test your pages in both IE and FF,
once you figure out what you can and cannot do you should be able to get
your pages looking good in both browsers, and as a result they will also
look good in Opera, Safari and Chrome...or at least this has been the
general rule we have found. Have fun and just realize that you are working
in two mediums...print and web and sometimes you just have to change your
formatting, design or layout in order to get the effect you want and cross
browser compatibility.

Post back if you can't figure something out...for the most part we have
been able to figure out how to work around most all the cross browser
issues.

DavidF

Hi David,

It turns out that the problem was with my server. Some time ago they had
problems and changed how to upload to them. However, they did not send
this
info out to me so I have been continueing to upload as I had been before.
I
had been making the changes to the title as recommended as well as some
of
the changes that you recommended for compatibility formatting only to
find
that none of my changes have been overwriting the old files. I trouble
shooted this with the person who originally set up my site and who also
uses
the same server as me and he identified that I was not following the new
upload format. He identified where my problem was.....all of the changes
I
had been making were infact there but not loaded into the newly named
file
that my server wanted me to load into. Needless to say hours of making
changes was not to no avail. Alls I had to do was delet the file with my
changes that was sitting on the server, upload my changes again to the
new
file name and voila, there are all of my changes. Yup, the name of my
home
page is now as I want it to be

I followed your advice and down loaded FF to view my changes as I go
along.
I have started to enact some small format changes and test the waters on
my
first page. As you suggested, I took the fill color out of the text boxes
that contain links at the bottom of this page, created another identical
size
text box, placed it over the first, filled it with my color and then sent
it
to the back and voila, my links in that text box now work in FF!!! This
is
just the start of the task to make changes to all of my pages but it
looks
like your advice will serve me well as the tester that I did on my first
page
has worked well. I printer out your advice and will follow it to make
further
adjustments. I can't tell you how relieved I am that the changes are
working
and that I am seeing the changes now on FF. Thank you very much.

You have not changed the title in the code of your home page. Look at
your
site: http://www.reikibc.com/ Now go to view > source. Here is the first
part of the html code for the page:

<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"
xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice"
xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">

<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<link rel=File-List href="index_files/filelist.xml">
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
b\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
..shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<meta name="description" content="Reiki and Shamanic Healing">
<meta name="keywords"
content="Holistic Healing, Reiki, Shamanism, Animal Reiki, Reiki
Workshops,
Shamanic Workshops, Animal Reiki Workshops">
<title>Index.htm</title>
<style>
<!--
-----------

Notice That the title is still 'Index.htm'. As a result when you try to
save
this as a Favorite, you are going to get that as the name.

Once again go to Tools > Web Page Options and change the Page title.
Save
the change, Publish to the Web and produce new html files, and upload
the
new index.htm file and the new index_files folder. Note...it is possible
that you have not been successfully overwriting the old index.htm file
on
your server. Either delete the old files on the server, or rename the
"index.htm" file on your web server to "index.old", and then upload the
new
file.

Bottom line is until you change the code on your home page to something
other than "<title>Index.htm</title>" then you are going to continue to
get
"Index.htm" for the name to be saved when you try to save as a favorite.

And don't forget that the page title is different for each page...

DavidF

<snip>

I redid the process as follows ....open pub.doc>tools>web page
option>confirmed correct text in title box>ok>within pub.doc saved
changes>published to the web>opened browser>opened website (not
from
cache)>saved to favorites>opened fav list...still says index.htm.

I feel like I am going around in a circle trying to resolve this.
Before I
entered the tread with this problem I had actually tried this method
and
it
had not worked then either. I thought I may have missed a stage so
have
very
carefully followed your directions and still there is no change.

I see that the address bar reads correctly as reikibc.com, but the tab
that
opens says index.htm. Right now I have two tabs open; discussion
groups
home
(this site) and my site. The tab for this discussion group reads
"Discussion
Groups Home" and my tab reads Index.htm! I wonder if I have not
conveyed
my
problem correctly. I want my tab to NOT say index.htm but rather I
would
prefer my business name Spirit Works Holistic Healing so that when it
is
saved to favs it will say my business name. I think that is what I
have
been
saying all along but maybe in the off chance that is not what I have
said
then you can now point me in the right direction.


.