text spacing

[tim wilde]

Hi there,
Firstly, let me apologize if the following question is one
that has already been covered recently. I went through trying to find
any references to my problem and couldn't spot anything relavent.

Despite a few of the little niggles involved with using publisher I
have come to enjoy using it through the years and have actually used
it to create some fairly decent web pages. The trick I learnt after a
while to try and keep the size down and accessing easy was to keep
picture file sizes down and avoid at all costs mixing frames text with
graphics, which of course lead to LARGE files.

The one thing that has always annoyed me about it when creating
webpages is the fact you constantly have to have things 'off page' or
out of alignment and that you have to keep fine tuning the page by
viewing it in web page format and then going back to the working
document to adjust things. Over time I have gotten pretty used to it
all and don't mind, but a problem has crept in recently which is
really causing me problems.

When creating text boxes and setting them up on the page, I used to be
able to put a few little items at the bottom of the page to jazz
things up ('back' and 'forward' buttons, lines across the bottom to
make it clean, etc) and always placed them just under the text boxes.
The spacing was never a problem. In the last year or so though I've
noticed a real problem in that when I try and place things directly
under the text boxes, I get a huge and empty gap between the text and
the buttons showing when I check my work in webpage mode. I've
adjusted the text box, moved the buttons as close as I could to the
text box to minimize the gap, anything and everything I could think
of, but the big gaps stay on the web page version when I click it up.
I've played with the type of text, it's size, the size of the web
page, you name it, I've tried it, but the big gaps stay there.

Strangely enough, the problem even cropped up recently on a web page I
created over a year ago and which was perfectly fine when I finished
it and loaded it up on to the web site. I hadn't looked at the page
for a few months and recently paid it a visit, only to discover the
unsightly gaps at the bottom of the pages had crept in - all of my
careful alignement of small jpeg's to one side of the text box had
also been mysteriously thrown off as well.

Another little problem I've noticed of late (whether it's related or
not I don't know) is that I used to be able to place very
large-lettered headers on my web pages, now I can't. Publisher seems
to have developed a mind of its own and automatically downsizes them,
regardless of how I might play around with them. Headers I had no
problem with a couple of years ago are now impossible.

Is there a bug in my program, or is there some mystery setting I may
have unintentionally changed in the program that is causing all these
problems? As I said, I never used to have these problems in the past,
only recently have they cropped up.

Thanks in advance.

Tim

 

[David Bartosik - MS MVP]

If you have an understanding of cells and tables you shouldn't have to do
all the extra work it sounds like you do. I'd recommend you read my article
http://www.davidbartosik.com/pub2k/pub2k_4.htm
The gaps you are referring to sound to me like cell sizing, where the
browser sizes a cell or cells relative to the largest one. So an object you
have neighboring the object you are concerned with is larger and so the gap
is there to fill out the difference.

As far as the headers are concerned, you have to keep in mind that the
browser only has a limited number of text sizing options, you don't have
free rein as in a print publication. If you need a larger text (for example
see the logo for www.barvin.com) than that needs to be created as a graphic
image. Most likely the inconsistency you are claiming is because sometimes
you are laying out the page in such a fashion that the header is converted
to an image (I document when and why Publisher converts objects to images on
my site) in which case the text size is retained while other times it
remains textual and the html code is written in the highest size it supports
which looks smaller to you.

Additionally all I've said above has some fluctuation between versions 2000
thru 2003 and also between settings within a version. (you don't state the
version in use)

There is nothing mysterious about the program. It simply does different
things in response to things you do (again it varies by version) so you have
to understand what you are doing. My web site is intended to give you that
understanding.

--
David Bartosik - MS MVP
for Publisher help:
www.davidbartosik.com
enter to win Pub 2003:
www.davidbartosik.com/giveaway.aspx

 

[tim wilde]

Hi,
Thanks so much for the information. I have actually saved your site
for future reference. The tips you gave on minimizing size are things
I will bear in mind for future reference.

By the way, I actually discovered what my problem was - the minute I
discovered the root cause, everything fell into place regarding what I
said in my previous post - pages that appeared fine last year now have
text boxes out of alighnment and with unsightly gaps, etc. I think it
even accounts for what I said regarding large headers.

What lay at the heart of the problem was so simple, yet so confusing,
was simply that my browser's text size had somehow been switched from
the standard 'medium' to 'smaller', which is what so drastically
affected the appreance of the my web pages when I clicked them up.
That's why pages that appeared and loaded perfectly fine last year now
appeared out of wack, despite the fact I had done nothing to them! It
also explained why I was encountering design problems recently,
problems that I had never encountered in the past.

The question remains how it got changed - I know I didn't do it, and
my wife wouldn't know the first place to look. All I can think is that
we had a major problem late last year with the computer and had to
take it to a techie, part of which was that Windows had to be reloaded
back on. Perhaps at the time he changed the setting as a part of his
own preferences while he was working on it - who knows? We certainly
didn't notice anything different in the size - it's really not that
noticable.

At an rate, I would suggest that anyone who encounters similar
problems to the one I detailed regarding confusing text box gaps to
check on their browser's text size setting.

The web page that caused all the confusion is
www.angelfire/oz/aussietravel. Try viewing page 2 (as an example)with
the 'smaller' text size on your browser and you'll see why it became
so confusing and why nothing I seemed to do in publisher could correct
the unsightly gap at the bottom - and why the pixs to the left were
out of alignment with the text.

Thanks....Tim

 

[David Bartosik - MS MVP]

What you say is true. Well can be true that is. Unfortunately you never
stated your version of Publisher. If one is using for example version 2000
at it's lowest target setting than the font that Publisher codes can be
adjusted by the browser. If they are using version 2002 the font size is
fixed in the code and is not adjustable by the browser.
I mentioned in my first response there are differences and noted the lack of
a stated version.

It is important for everyone participating in the forum to recognize the
importance of stating the version in use and to make note that a fix for
something in one version may not be applicable in another version.

--
David Bartosik - MS MVP
for Publisher help:
www.davidbartosik.com
enter to win Pub 2003:
www.davidbartosik.com/giveaway.aspx