Hi Greville, I imagine someone smarter than I will have a better solution
for you, but here are some comments and observations.
First, it appears that you are using Publisher 2003, and if you haven't done
so you might consider installing the Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 1
that, among other things, allows you to compress images to reduce the size
of the HTML file produced by Publisher 2003, and improve the loading time.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011266301033.aspx
Second, though most of your site looks fine, I did notice a couple places
where the tables in the middle of the pages did seem to overlap, and the
spacing between other objects didn't seem consistent. Are you importing the
tables...pasting...inserting, what? This information might help someone else
come up with a better solution.
Though you could use guide lines, one of the ways I find easier to get
consistent spacing between multiple objects is first to make sure the 'Snap
To...' options under Tools are ticked. Then I produced several text boxes in
the scratch area, of varying sizes, quarter inch, eighth inch, etc., filled
them with a color so they were easy to see, and use them for 'spacers'. For
example if I have two slightly different sized text boxes that I want a
quarter inch apart, but the same width and inline, I first move, and 'snap
to', the text boxes. If I want to resize, I grab the side of the box I want
to resize and let it 'snap to' the same size as the other text box.
Once I have the two text boxes the size I want, and aligned with each other,
I select one of text boxes (just click on it), hold the shift key down, and
drag it away from the other box (this way the alignment doesn't change). I
then drag over one of my 'spacer' boxes and allow it to snap to the first
box, then go back to the second box, select, shift, drag, and 'snap to' the
spacer box. Then select the spacer box and drag it back to the scratch area
until I need it again.
In your case assuming that your tables are all the same width, after you
produce the 'spacer' box the size you want, move the 'spacer' and 'snap to'
a lower corner of your first table, select the next table, and move it up
until it 'snaps to' the 'spacer', then move the 'spacer' to the bottom
corner of that second table, and work your way down until you have all your
tables an equal distance apart, and inline. You could then select and group
all the tables together to move them around on your page without changing
the alignment or spacing.
Alternatively, I 'snap to' two objects...tables, images, text boxes etc,
hold down the Alt key, and use the arrow keys to 'nudge' the two objects
apart. I just keep track of how many times I 'nudge', and use the same
number for other objects for consistency.
Generally I find these two methods work pretty well for me, unless I am
using the 'insert HTML code fragement', because it is difficult to know the
exact dimensions of that object until your actually produce the HTML code. I
just trial and error for aligning those...
This was awfully long winded, but I didn't know a more succinct way of
describing the way I manage spacing. I hope it helps. And finally...you have
about the widest web pages I have seen produced with Publisher. What width
did you set your pages to? Just curious...
DavidF
