How to prevent publisher from automatically making duplicate graph

[chichi432]

I have made a website for my winter project and now that I'm ready to put it
into action, I have realized that there are several issues with how publisher
treats graphic files. I will have to scrap the whole thing if I can't find
resolution.

First, it is a selling site comprised mostly of product pictures. From
looking at my published file list to ftp, there are several files in
different formats for each picture which only makes my large website even
larger. Plus I have also noticed that sometimes it doesn't make the duplicate
copies and I am unsure of the reason???

Is there a workaround or a way to turn this feature off? I am searching for
a way to insert an original picture ONLY into the website. Most of the
product photo's are linked to a computer file. Not sure if this affects any
processes or not.

Since there are so many photo's on the site, the photo file names thats
automatically generated really makes it hard to keep track. I have to write
down each name when I upload. This is really time consuming to update the
site. Is there a way around this also?

Please help!

 

[Mike Koewler]

You are making things seem harder than they are. Pub uses different
formats for the same photo with the idea that whichever looks the best
in a certain browser will be shown.

As for having to remember names - you don't. Look at the picture in your
Pub file and change that.

Mike

 

[chichi432]

Hello Mike, Thanks for responding. I understand why publisher creates these
duplicates, but if they are all JPEG's then I assume I would be fine with
just one picture taking up server space instead of 3 pictures.

AND IT SEEMS TO UPLOAD THE ORIGINAL PIC ON MY COMPUTER AS WELL AS THE
PICTURE ON THE LAYOUT PLUS THUMBNAIL AND THEN ADD THE AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED
PICTURE(s) IN DIFFERENT FORMATS....Do you see my issue?

And as far as the photo file names go, I often need to know the location on
the ftp server so that I can link directly to it. (Such as for slide shows
and linking to these pics from other websites.) This is why it is a major
problem for me. I have to know what the exact filename is and I have to
search through a major list that doesn't seem to publish in a particular
order.

 

[chichi432]

Hi David,

I once thought that linking photo's was the best way to do a website with a
large amt of photo's. I inserted a (pre-sized & compressed) picture from a
compuer file. Then from the graphics manager, I linked this layout picture to
back to the original file using "save as linked picture".

I manually deleted the extra pictures generated on the ftp server.

This all seemed fine at first, but then I added a page in the beginning of
the website and everything seemed to come undone. I now have hundreds of
photo file names and I don't know what is what.

Yes, I am willing to do anything it takes to get this site in working &
managable condition. Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

[DavidF]

As Mike said, the coding engine for Publisher produces different pictures in
different formats for different browsers with the goal of serving up the
best image...with mixed results. You can minimize this by going to Tools >
Options > Web tab and unchecking rely on vml and allow png.

If you want to by pass the coding engine you can IMPORT rather than embed
the images, but it will take some work. If you want to pursue this, post
back and I will explain the process.

DavidF

 

[chichi432]

Thanks so much David. I appreciate the help greatly. I have waded through
tons of MS info and never could find details on this subject. Your quick
response is a surprising delight!!!

I was afraid that the <img src> link was the answer and now you have
confirmed that. I like using publisher because of its WYSIWYG layout features
and I would like to be able to see the pics offline as a cataloge reference
because my rural DSL is not always dependable. Anyway, I place the "image"
folder next to "index_files" on the same level and not within the
index_files...right?

I know Publisher is not the program to manage my site because of excess code
and limitations, but its all I have right now. I guess I'm asking too much of
publisher.

One last question: Do you have a suggestion for a web design program that
is WYSIWYG and has the ability to alter the source code? There is so many
choices and its really confusing. It also needs to run on WIN XP "Home" (if
possible), be in a reasonable price range, and has an upload to ftp tool. The
ones I have found are $600-$1,800 which is out of my range. I will later need
to have a better program to manage this site if it takes off as planned.

 

[DavidF]

It sounds like you have done much of the work already. You already know how
to resize and optimize your images outside of Publisher. That is the part
that can be tedious and time consuming and confusing to people who don't
know how to do that. Just make sure the images are optimized for the web,
and are as small of file size as possible, so they load quickly. Now all you
have to do is to upload those images to a folder on your site, which I would
suggest that you call "images". Create the folder at the same directory
level as your index.htm file and your index_files folder that you create
when you Publish to the Web from Publisher.

Then you will go to Insert > insert HTML code fragment and paste in
variations of the following:

<IMG SRC="http://www.yourdomain.com/images/yourimage.jpg" ALT="What ever ALT
text you want for the image" border="0" width="120" height="60"></A>

Change the domain name, the image name, the ALT tag text, and the width and
height to correspond to your image that you are importing. Then resize the
code fragment box to the same size as the image, and drag the box to where
you want the image to import on your page.

When you import an image to your Pub page in this manner, you bypass the
coding engine and import the original image to your page. You will probably
have a better quality image and a faster loading image. And of course in
your case you will now know where those images are, and what the file name
will be, for your other linking purposes.

If you want the image to have a link, you can change the code snippet to
this:

<A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.someotherdomain.com"><IMG
SRC="http://www.yourdomain.com/images/yourimage.jpg" ALT="What ever ALT text
you want for the image" border="0" width="120" height="60"></A>

This would open a new window and load someotherdomain.com when you clicked
on the image.

DavidF

 

[DavidF]

Yes, on the same level...

I don't know what to suggest program wise, but FrontPage has been a popular
choice, and it is being replaced with Web Publisher. And since you are on a
budget, try Nvu. http://www.nvu.com/index.php Its free.

And potentially you should consider ASP...

The problem is that you want WYSIWYG and convenience, but those things
always come with limitations. Publisher is fine for small simple static
sites, but it is a DTP first and foremost.

DavidF

 

[Mike Koewler]

David,

I'm sure another program just slipped your mind! Serif WebPlus is
WYSIWYG, lots of actions are similar to Pub, one can manipulate the
code, it has a Wizard for forms so FP extensions are not necessary
(allowing one to use ftp to publish the site - which is built into WP)
and has lots of bells and whistles. The price is a lot less than $100,
especially if one downloads the FREE but older version then upgrades.
Maybe less than $50.

FWIW, I know a couple of people who have done sites of over 100 pages,
with forms, e-commerce, counters, blogs, etc., all done with WebPlus.

Mike

 

[DavidF]

Nah, it didn't slip my mind, although my mind has been slipn' at bit...I was
just setting you up to talk about WP ;-)

I also didn't include it because the OP seemed to be asking for not only
WYSIWYG, but also a code editor, and I didn't really see WP fitting that
criteria. I think you can insert code fragments in WP, but its not a true
code editor is it? But then maybe that isn't what the OP was asking for...

DavidF

 

[Mike Koewler]

David,

WP does not have HTML editing, per se. One can view the HTML code and
add to it, even overwrite it (if they know coding well - which I
don't!). But it is possible to say add JS to the <head> or <body>. One
guy used it to write a php page. WP allows one to save a page as html,
htm, php or asp, but calling an animal a horse doesn't make it one. His
pages, though, were php.

Mike

 

[DavidF]

Mike,

Thanks for the explanation. It may not be a horse, but it sure sounds more
like a horse than Publisher in terms of being able to edit the code.

DavidF