Publisher-Updated webpage will not display

[cuzzinkc]

A friend created a simple website in Publisher 2000 (I think) for a local
historical society. It consists of only 8 pages, and she frequently needs to
update Page 7 but none of the others. That had been working fine for about 6
months, but the latest update to Page 7 will not display. It shows the
unchanged parts of the page but not the new parts. (They are text boxes.)
Where the text should be, there is nothing. The page shows just fine on her
local machine--and on mine--but not on the web. When overwriting the old
pages didn't work, we totally deleted the files from the web server and then
copied the new ones to it, but that was not successful, either. All the
pages are fine except Page 7. We'd appreciate any ideas...

 

[cuzzinkc]

Thanks, Don. That did work--to a point. It did create the updated Page 7.
But I use Publisher 2003 on my computer, and when I save it as a web page it
creates strange page numbers. Instead of 1,2,3, etc. I now have page 335
(page 2), page 271 (page 3), page 470 (page 4), page 445 (page 5), page 324
(page 6), page 518 (page 7) and page 591 (page 8). Even though the website
works, it's VERY slow loading the images. What's the deal here? I deleted
everything except the .pub file before I "published" it. I guess it's better
than it was, but my friend will never understand those page numbers when she
goes to change the programs on page 7 (518) again. The URL of the site is
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~indbchs/index.htm if you want to see what
you think. I really appreciate it.
-- Karen

 

[DavidF]

The basic problem is that Pub 2000 and Pub 2003 use two different html
coding engines and produce different web files. In Pub 2000, you did a Save
As a Web Page to produce all the web files and those files were all "loose".
When you produce the web files in Pub 2003, assuming that you don't change
the defaults, Publisher produces an index.htm (your home page) plus an
index_files folder than contains all the supporting graphics, images and the
other pages for the site....all the files that were "loose" in Pub 2000 are
contained in the index_files folder except for the index.htm file. You can't
switch back and forth between Pub 2000 and 2003. Pub 2000 won't even open a
Pub 2003 file. Plus Pub 2000 uses a default of .html for the web pages, and
Pub 2003 uses .htm.

Also, as I said above, you use the File > Save as a Web page to produce the
web files in Publisher 2000, but if you use the Save as a Web page in Pub
2003, it produces "unfiltered" or "rich" html code, loaded with Office tags,
which is very bloated, heavy and slow loading. Instead use the File >
Publish to the Web to produce your html files in Pub 2003, and you will get
"filtered" files without the Office tags, and the code is less bloated and
loads more quickly.

Another difference is that when you produce your web files in Pub 2000, the
html coding engine automatically resizes and resamples all inserted images,
and optimizes them for the web. In Pub 2003, you must use the compress
graphics to do this, prior to producing your web files, or you end up with
the original oversized non-optimized images, and thus a slow loading page.

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

Now as to the page naming convention, that also varies as you have
discovered between the versions. I don't think this should be an issue as
you should probably upload new files each time you change the Pub file and
not try to upload just the changes on page 7 as you put it. However you can
custom name each page, and if you prefer you can name the pages in the same
way they are in Pub 2000. I won't go into detail about that at this point.

Bottom line is that you can't and should not switch back and forth between
Pub 2000 and 2003 for your web pages...they function too differently.

If you have more questions about Publisher webs, then post in the web group
and we will try to help you there:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.publisher.webdesign
Please include the version of Publisher you are using, the URL of your site
and as much detail as possible.

DavidF