Now that is the kind of link I like...thanks.
One of these days I am going to have to load Pub 2002 I guess, because I am
not sure how many of your problems would be the same in Pub 2003 or not. I
can say that many if not most of your problems would go away if you used Pub
2000. But I will try to help based on how 2003 works.
First of all, Publisher makes copies of images that are inserted into a
Publisher document when you convert to html. With the inclusion of VML and
XHTML in Pub 2002+, images in general became much more difficult to manage.
So first of all, go to Tools > Options > Web tab and check to see if you
have the options "Rely on VML..." and "Allow PNG...". If you do, uncheck
them. This change alone could fix many of the problems I will discuss below.
Before I begin, was this website originally built in Pub 2000?
As to your home page, and the buttons you are using for your navbar. It
appears that you are using transparent GIF images, and in my experience when
Pub 2003, and presumably 2002, makes copies of them, it messes up the
transparency and the quality. This does not happen in Pub 2000. About the
only away around this if you want to use these buttons, is to import them
instead of embed them in the publication. I can give you instructions on how
to do that if you want to stay with those buttons, and if changing the
options above don't fix the problems with the quality of the button images.
One thing you can check is the aspect ratio and scale of the button images.
Assuming it is the same in Pub 2002, right click one of the button images >
format picture (or go to the top menu for format if right click doesn't
work). Then go to the Size tab. Under Scale confirm that the Height and
Width are at 100%, and the Lock aspect ratio box is selected. Also select
the Relative to original picture size. Ok. Does this change the pictures on
your page? Try a web page preview and see if the button pictures look any
better. If you are not inserting the buttons as full size and 100% scale
with the aspect ratio locked, then that is probably why your images look so
poor. If you are inserting them appropriately, then it is the way 2002
messes up the images when they are copied during the html conversion
process.
You should NOT try to display the buttons larger than the original. That
will always result in a pixilated image. And if you want to display the
buttons at smaller than the original, you should probably resample and
resize them in a third party image editor to exactly the correct size before
you insert them.
www.irfanview.com is a good freebie if you don't have one.
This step could mean that you won't have to import the images.
As to the camera button shifting down the page, I suspect this is because of
an "overlap" issue. In Pub 2003, under Arrange you will find the Snap To
feature...make sure that is enabled, where ever it is in 2002. This will
help prevent overlapping design elements. Study the placement of your logo
and all the navbar images, and make sure that none of them are overlapping.
In fact, use the nudge tool to give them a little separation. And if the
text below the buttons is in a text box, make sure that those boxes don't
overlap the images. Are your text descriptions in individual text boxes?
I would seriously reconsider your background image. Here is a link to it:
http://www.auglaizeacres.com/COLONIAL/index_image001.jpg
It is 1024 X 122 and viewed on a monitor wider than that, it looks really
strange, and the "torn edge" and the white space before the edge, repeats
itself, so you have the torn edge twice. I am viewing at 1152. With this
said, I don't think it has anything to do with the rest of your problems,
but it sure doesn't look good on larger monitors or monitors set to over
1024 wide.
http://auglaizeacres.com/COLONIAL/index_page0001.htm your pictures page:
Here is a good example of how overlapping images can result in one big ugly
image:
http://www.auglaizeacres.com/COLONIAL/index_image016.gif
You can't overlap the images in a web page like you can in a print
document...
Also, you can't use shadowing like you did in the Pictures title, or it also
is converted to a bad image. There are simply some things you can do in
print that will not translate to html...gotta use regular text, and should
use a web friendly font.
http://www.auglaizeacres.com/COLONIAL/index_page0002.htm your information
page:
Almost everything on this page is converted to an image:
http://www.auglaizeacres.com/COLONIAL/index_image018.gif
I already mentioned the shaded, maybe wordart that you are using for the
titles. Also bulleted columns are converted to images...sorry another
example of a no-no in html. Try two text boxes with a dot symbol inserted in
front of the text instead of bullet formatted columns.
http://www.auglaizeacres.com/COLONIAL/index_page0003.htm Email Center:
Once again you end up with most of the page as an image:
http://www.auglaizeacres.com/COLONIAL/index_image020.gif
I think I will stop at this point, but the design mistakes made are
basically the same throughout the site, and the fixes are basically the
same. As I said above, change the VML and PNG options, and that alone might
fix a lot. If it doesn't then start changing the spacing and fixing the
overlapping elements. And if the menu buttons continue to look bad, post
back and I will give you instructions on how to import them. Oh and by the
way, I assume you are not using a master page? I think that option came with
Pub 2003, but if it is in 2002, don't use it.
Now aren't you glad you asked me what was wrong? ;-) Sorry, but at least you
now have an idea of how to resolve the issues. And one more time...seriously
consider going back to Pub 2000 for your web work. It is way better than
2002 and given that you are going to have to probably rearrange your layouts
on almost every page anyway, it would be a fairly simple process of opening
an instance of Pub 2000 along with your current file in Pub 2002, and copy
and pasting the content to Pub 2000.
DavidF
