I am still confident that MSFT will issue a patch that will fix the
'grouping' issue with IE8 and at least Publisher 2007 webs.
Unfortunately there is no basis for that belief, although it is vaguely
possible. Publisher has got fundamental problems when it comes to generating
web pages, and for Microsoft to fix it properly would require a massive
development effort. Bearing in mind that they've made no effort to fix even
simple bugs which have been in the product since at least the 2000 version,
this seems unlikely. The changes in more recent versions appear to have
simply involved 'bolting in' modules from the rest of the Office line - but
even that so far hasn't included the ribbon bar, obviously. There are huge
difficulties in trying to make a print-centric dtp program generate web
pages well, which not even the industry heavyweights Quark & Adobe have
solved in any useful fashion, so it seems unlikely that Microsoft will do
any better.
Bearing in mind that Microsoft are pushing their Live products for simple
web sites (& hosting) and Expression Web Designer for proper page design,
it's hard to see where Publisher will fit in future. It seems likely that
they may drop the product entirely, or maybe simply remove its web page
creation facilities and concentrate on enhancing the print side to even turn
it into a competitor against Quark Xpress, Indesign and even Scribus.
Perhaps even a completely new product will appear, but given their recent
staff lay-offs that might seem unlikely.
If you are not willing to avail yourself of a relatively easy fix for the short
term and most likely a permanent fix in the long term, then by all means
you can invest the time and money in buying and learning other software,
Buying other software is not necessary. Learning the ropes of HTML & CSS,
which really isn't very difficult, should lead to the ability to build web
pages using only a simple text editor such as Notepad. An image manipulation
program will also be needed - free/cheap ones such as Paint.Net or Photoline
for more sophisticated purposes will do. There are heaps of free tutorials
and documentation available on the web, and some excellent books to be
found - particularly those by Eric Meyer on CSS.
And if you want to go with a full code editor such as MSFT Web Expression
then plan on learning at least basic html coding, CSS and perhaps a bit of
PHP.
PHP definitely not required, unless you need to build 'active' programmed
web sites, in which case ASP and ASP.NET or even Perl would also be
contenders. Some Javascript knowledge would be far more useful however for
performing clever client-side stuff using DHTML for such things as slide-out
menus etc. but if this is needed then it may be best to call upon an expert.
This sort of thing is all well beyond what can be achieved with Publisher
though, so probably not worth worrying about.
No - Publisher is a tool to use if you have no knowledge of HTML - but by no
means a good one, in any version, and particularly the post-2000 ones. There
are better ones around - Serif Web Publisher has been mentioned by others,
and Netobjects Fusion might be worth a look. Both of these programs have
been given away free in old-version form on magazine cover cds.
Moving up a step, slightly more extensive and/or complicated web sites might
be better addressed using a content management system such as Joomla or
Drupal. Many web hosting companies now offer these at very low cost or
included as part of a bundle. These allow easy on-going maintenance and
modifications of web pages with no design or HTML knowledge required in a
lot of cases, but expert knowledge will be needed to set them up. This is
also addressed by Microsoft's 'Live' offering, but in their case no expert
knowledge is required at the expense of flexibility. For a considerable
number of simple web sites which almost by definition have been poorly
lashed-up with Publisher though it is to be recommended.
