How do I stop Publisher from reducing my image size?

[I have a good question]

How do I stop Publisher from reducing my image sizes? I have already saved
them as small as possible for the web and it looks fine on my computer. Live
on the web and on other pc's the images have been reduced to pixelated
remnants of what it is supposed to look like... How can this be fixed or
changed?

 

[DavidF]

You didn't tell us what version of Publisher you are using, or provide a
link to an example, or say whether this is with IE or FF so the best I can
do is guess at a solution.

Make sure your images are scaled at 100%. Select image > Format Picture >
Size tab and scale. If your images are less than or more than 100% of the
original size after inserting them, then Publisher sometimes makes a copy of
the image that is lower quality.

You say that your images are optimized for the web before you insert them.
Do you optimize at 72 ppi or 96 ppi? Publisher outputs at 96 so optimize at
96.

Or perhaps compress your images which will resize them. Reference: Compress
graphics file sizes to create smaller Publisher Web pages (2003):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA011266301033.aspx

Reference: Compress Pictures dialog box (2007):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100363901033.aspx?pid=CL100605171033

Or perhaps go to tools > options > web tab and check the option "Allow
PNG..." . This will result in the copies made by Publisher in the publishing
process to be .png files instead of .gif files and though a bit larger in
file size they can also be a bit better in resolution.

DavidF

 

[GeoffreyChaucer]

Give us your site's URL and tell us what version of Publisher you are using.

 

[I have a good question]

Thanks for the replies. I am using Publisher 2007. I have optimized to 72
ppi so will redo in 96 ppi and see if that will help. Also after
investigating more it seems to be problems with browsers... In IE is 100%,
in Opera the quality is bad, in Google Chrome the quality is bad as well as
the background looses the gradient and comes out in blocks... Haven't tried
FF yet. www.heartsdreamshealing.com

 

[DavidF]

On your home page you have a couple graphics where I can see the difference
between IE and FF. I have the other browsers but test primarily in IE and
FF.

As I explained in some circumstances Publisher will make a copy of an image
and one graphic is served up for IE and another for all the other browsers.

Here is one of your images as seen in IE7:
http://www.heartsdreamshealing.com/index_files/image359.jpg
And the version rendered in FF:
http://www.heartsdreamshealing.com/index_files/image3591.gif

And the other example:
http://www.heartsdreamshealing.com/index_files/image2323.jpg
and
http://www.heartsdreamshealing.com/index_files/image23231.gif

Instead of spending your time changing the original images to 96 ppi, study
the different pictures examples. Note that in the lower quality .gif images
the border that you use is added to the original .jpg image seen in IE. It
is unfortunate but when you add a "fancy" border around an image then
Publisher will combine the two elements and produce the poor quality gif
file for non-IE browsers. The same is true of text boxes. A "fancy" border
around a text box will convert that text box into an image.

In the case of your images, converting your original image to 96 ppi will
not solve the problem. You have several choices of how to fix the problem.
The fastest is to turn on the option of allowing PNG files. Publisher will
then produce a higher quality .png file of the images combined with the
border. Chances are even though the png file will be better than the gif
file, it will still be lower quality than the original .jpg file.

A better option is to either not use a border at all which will result in
the same .jpg image being used in both FF and IE and the other browsers, or
in some cases if you can use a simple one line border and Publisher will
still not combine the image with the border. You will have to experiment.
For this to work correctly you will have to insert the image at 100% scale.
If not then run the compress graphics function and that will resize the
image for you. Though the ideal is to optimize your images at 96 ppi and
size them before you insert them, I doubt that you will notice much
difference between that and just using the compress graphics function, as it
effectively does all that for you. You just don't get to choose the level of
compression.

And a final way which also works with text boxes that are converted to
images because of "fancy" borders, is to layer the border behind the image
or the text box. Remove the border from the image. Then produce a text box
that is exactly the same size as the image and apply the "fancy" border to
the text box. Overlay the empty text box with the border and the image and
send the text box to the back via the Arrange menu. Now you will get the
appearance of the image with the border but the text box with the border and
the image will not be combined.

Nice looking site by the way. I would suggest that you make it a bit more
narrow. In many cases at the current width it would require many viewers to
use horizontal scrolling to see the whole page. That is much worse than
having some "white space" to the right of a left justified page. Better to
use the maximum 984 pixel width that is one of the defaults in Publisher.
Personally I still prefer 760, but that is me...

And finally, be sure to download and install the Office 2007 SP2 if you
haven't already.

DavidF

 

[I have a good question]

Thank you! That's really helpful and I have a bit of work to do - good for
character building

 

[DavidF]

You are welcome. You have done the really hard work of building the basic
site and writing the content. Now it is a formatting thing. You need to
tweak your formatting and layout so that the pages will look good and work
correctly in both IE and FF, and then they should work in all the major
browsers.

I don't know how much tweaking you plan on doing but here is another tip.
When you Publish to the Web and produce your web files, direct those files
to where you can easily find them on your local computer. Then open the
index_files folder and look at the files in thumbnail view. Now you will be
able to quickly spot the instances of when Publisher makes a poor quality
copy of an inserted image (faster than uploading new files to test each
time). Also you can spot text boxes that have been converted to images. I
didn't want to overload you, but I also noticed on some pages that your text
boxes have been converted to images. As you work through your pages you
should also fix those. You can also tell if text has been converted to an
image by trying to left click, select text when viewed in the browser. If
you can't select the text, it is an image.

To tweak the formatting on the text boxes, look again for fancy borders and
"fancy fills". I have found some gradient fills result in an image where
simple one-color fills or no fill at all will not be converted to an image.

Also make sure that you ungroup text boxes from other elements as that will
also result in combined images.

Once again, I think you have the bulk of your work done and now it is just a
matter of tweaking and adjusting your formatting and layout so that you get
good cross browser compatibility. Have fun and come back if you run up
against anything you can't figure out.

DavidF

 

[Spike]

The link back to your home page on the navigation bar is "index.htm" but the
home page is "index.html". One of them needs to be changed.

Spike

 

[I have a good question]

Thanks guys!

The link back to your home page on the navigation bar is "index.htm" but the
home page is "index.html". One of them needs to be changed.

Spike


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