Images Not Displaying and Navbar Alignment Problem

[Warwick]

I have put together a simple static website using Pub 2007 developed on
Vista, which I checked in web page preview.

First issue is with the navbar arrows not aligning with the text. The text
has moved upwards in preview mode. From a search of the discussion site, it
may be that the font I am using (Tahoma) is causing it as it is not one of
the 8 web fonts. I set the paragraph format after paragraphs to 0pt, but this
made no difference.

Publishing to the web (another minor problem that the help file does not
seem to have the instructions coorectly for Vista), I save all the files to
one upload directory and then manually ftp to the web server. All the files
listed in the index_filelist.xml are copied to the public_html folder on the
web server.

However, several of the .png images do not render at all. JPG's seem ok
(although I have not compressed these) as do the Publisher generated .png
files (navbar, backdround etc).

Whilst this is not the end of the world, I do find it frustrating that it
does not work.

The website can be viewed at home.ps.gen.nz/~amberfields

The site is not complete as I do not want to spend any more time if I cannot
get these minor issues resolved.

Any help gratefully received.

 

[Rob Giordano [MS MVP]]

all the image links are broken...at least from here they are

 

[DavidF]

Navbar alignment - try the default web friendly font at the default font
size, or even a different navbar altogether. In my experience there is not
much you can do with the formatting of the wizard built navbars in
Publisher. If you want more control over how the navbars look, then build
your own and don't use the wizard.

You should avoid using non web friendly fonts as a rule. The text can be
changed to a different font and/or converted to an image depending on the
viewer's browser. You get unpredictable results and lack of control over
what the viewer will see when they load your pages.

Go to Tools > Options > Web tab and uncheck the option "allow png..." and
see if that makes any difference. Once again you will get unpredictable
results in different browsers if you use PNG files. Publisher makes copies
of all embedded images and serves up different images for different
browsers. If you view your site in FireFox, even the navbar is converted to
a png and does not load. In general it is better to use .gif and .jpg image
files. Also you should make a habit of testing the site in both IE and FF.
If the site works in both, then it will also work in Safari, Opera and most
other browsers...your site will be cross browser compatible.

Uploading got a bit confusing when IE7 was introduced, and further
complicated with Vista. You can read about the recommended way to ftp upload
in this article:

Prepare, publish, and maintain your Publisher Web site:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA100947601033.aspx
Under the 'Publish a web site by using ftp' section click the plus symbol by
'How'.

Personally I think the two step process you used is the better solution.
Publish to your local computer and then upload the web files to your host
via a third part ftp client. FileZilla is a good solution:
http://filezilla-project.org/
Peruse this page for instructions on how to use the tool:
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/documentation/

DavidF

 

[Warwick]

Thanks for having a look and replying.

Do I understand you correctly that the HTML generated by Publisher cannot
locate the external images (links broken), even though the images are in the
same directory as the .jpg's and the .htm's? The .png's generated by
Publisher seem ok though and they are in the same directory.

I am not sure where to go from here other than convert my .png file to a
..jpg. I am more puzzled as to what is going in the HTML.

Appreciate any thoughts.

 

[Warwick]

Thanks for having a look and replying re. the Navbar alignment.

I realised that the font I used may cause problems. Being new to using
Publisher for the web, I was hoping not to have to delve too deep. I could
not fathom what attribute in the HTML was getting out of whack to cause the
text to float upwards. I guess I am not too convinced that a standard web
font will not do the same thing. I can give it a go.

You also suggest building a custom NavBar. I will have to look at how to do
that, but won't I run into the same thing as the code generator will generate
the same sort of code?

Appreciate any help.

 

[DavidF]

I was just sharing my experience with the navbar, and suggesting that you at
least try using a standard web font. It should take you about 2 minutes to
change the fonts and do a web page preview. Even Publisher requires a bit of
effort. And for what its worth, I don't think that your navbars looked
bad...only you will ever know that you didn't design the navbar to look that
way. Sometimes it is better to just accept things coming out a bit different
than you expected rather than drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how
to fix the small things.

Not such a small thing though is the recommendation to disable the PNG
option. If you look at your site in FireFox none of the PNG images load. So
before you upload again, go to Tools > Options > Web tab and uncheck the
allow png option. Also run the compress graphics tool. This will help sort
out some of the issues of Publisher producing pngs to begin with:

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

DavidF