Web site preview trouble

[Reiki plus]

When I go into web site preview and try to scroll through my text it is surgy
and only moves a 1 line short choppy jump...essentially I cannot scroll, I
have to click the down arrow and this is when it becomes choppy...is this a
precurser to the readers having trouble scrolling through my site?

I am using the 2003 version of Publisher. I have used a dark leather look
background for the web site and decided to contrast it with a light colored
overlay color which was imported as a jpg. The original import size was
1.22mb but when it imported it grew in size which I had to adjust small to
allow for the leather look background to be visible...I am not sure how to
tell the current size as it sits on the web page. I also imported a my logo
graphics as a jpg in original size of 242 Kb...again it grew in size and I
reduced it. One last import is my banner consisting of one picture in jpg,
original size 1.44mb....also grew and I adjusted it smaller. Is this the
problem? Do I have too much going on or in the wrong format or something. I
have put the site construction on hold until I get this figured out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Mike Koewler]

Reiki,

A good habit to get into is to adjust the image size and resolution in
an edit imaging program before importing it.

Mike

 

[Reiki plus]

Thanks Mike, can you be a little more specific. I am currently working with
photoimmpression.

 

[Mike Koewler]

Reiki,

If you have an idea how large the picture will be when placed on the
page, then you need to make it that size in PI. There's no use in
placing an image that is 10 inches wide originally in the web page when
it is needs to be only five inches wide.

Likewise, any image with an effective resolution above 96 dpi is overkill.

Mike

 

[DavidF]

As Mike said, all your images are too large. I haven't used
photoimpression, but look for instructions on how to "resample", " resize",
perhaps "optimize for the web". Then look at the width of the images on your
Pub page. The ruler at the top of the page should give you the pixel width
ideally, or at least in inches. Then in photoimpression resize your original
image to that width, and as Mike said 96 dpi or ppi. Then insert those new
images into your Pub page. You should find that your banner for example
should be reduced from 1.44 MB to probably less than 30 KB. Even your logo
could be reduced to probably less than 10 KB.

The ideal is to optimize and size your images before inserting them, but
also reference this: Compress graphics file sizes to create smaller
Publisher Web pages
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA011266301033.aspx

And if you can't figure out how to reduce the size of your images with
photoimpression, you could download and use Irfanview at
http://www.irfanview.com/ . It is free and remarkably capable.

DavidF

 

[DavidF]

I forgot to mention, that its possible you are not doing the background
correctly. Go to format > background > more backgrounds > and you get a Fill
Effects dialog. Go to the picture tab, Select Picture and browse to your
background image. Your background image should be somewhere between 100 X
100 and 160 x 160 pixels wide, and probably 1 to 5 kb in size. This small
image will be reproduced to fill the entire background of your page.

DavidF

 

[Reiki plus]

I forgot to mention, that its possible you are not doing the background
correctly. Go to format > background > more backgrounds > and you get a Fill
Effects dialog. Go to the picture tab, Select Picture and browse to your
background image. Your background image should be somewhere between 100 X
100 and 160 x 160 pixels wide, and probably 1 to 5 kb in size. This small
image will be reproduced to fill the entire background of your page.

DavidF

 

[Reiki plus]

Thanks for your help David and Mike.

I followed the below instructions to create a background with one exception,
I am choosing a texture from within the Fill Effects dialog not an image. Yes
it did fill the entire background once imported to my web page.

Now, from there I want to add an inset page so that there is a darker bigger
page with a smaller lighter page within it. I tried to do this from within
the background dialog but could not figure out how to make a page in a page
so I thought I would have to build it. So this is what I did...

I added an autoshape (rectangle) and filled it with a lighter texture from
within the Fill Effects dialog. I stetched the rectangle from 96-720
(according to the ruler...what is this measurement in....pixels or some
other?) I also lengthened it to around 5952 (again according to the ruler).

Is this going to work or am I creating a graphic that is too large again?
Over this "page in a page" I want to put my logo and banner that I am still
working on resizing.

 

[DavidF]

Reference this article: Understanding background padding in a Publisher web
(aka white space) :
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/archive/2006/01/07/80563.aspx

While it is written for those who are looking for a workaround to the fixed
left pages in Publisher, the workaround is basically what you seem to be
doing.

If you are using Publisher 2003, the one thing you are doing that would
present a problem is the length of your autoshape. Pub 2003 truncates the
pages after the last design element on the page, when you Publish to the Web
and convert it to HTML. If I understand you correctly, you will have a page
that is 5952 pixels long as it is now designed. While I could bicker with
David Bartosik's suggested page dimensions and yours, I would suggest that
you lengthen the autoshape just long enough to contain your content, which
will vary by the page.

You might also end up with some of your content that is overlapping,
combining into one big image. You can test this in a couple ways. If you do
a webpage preview, and try to left click & drag to select some text, and
can't, then that text has been converted to an image. Also to test your
image sizes, when you Publish to the Web, direct your output to your
computer somewhere you can find it. Then study the image file sizes produced
with Windows Explorer in details view.

DavidF

 

[Reiki plus]

Thanks David for your quick reply....just so you know, I'm using Pub 2003

I read through this article several times and found it very helpful. I would
ask for clarification on the comment in the article......

"select a rectangle shape and starting @ the top left corner of the pub page
draw the shape down to the right to 748x800px"

My question...can I not inset the shape so that it is not all the way into
the top left corner and is below the top so that the padding can actually be
seen all the way around the shape in 1024x768 px screen resolution or will
this create some weird effect once published to the web?

Also, do I understand you correctly that the verticle dimension of the shape
should be just slightly longer than where my text ends and is not restricted
to 748 px as written in the article where it says "in pub 2003 the page
height should never be modified?" Are we talking about two different
things.....one being the page height in page setup where the web page size is
created and the second being the height of the shape...I think I may have
confused myself?

In one of the articles in that web site you supplied there was a comment
that "from within web pub file >file>page setup>layout tab>custom> enter
800px in the width" I did this and the page height automatically went to
4608px...why does it automatically set such a long page...this will be
helpful to me because a couple of my pages are very long but I think this is
where my confusion may be coming from with the length of my autoshape....

 

[DavidF]

My first piece of advice is....try it. Whatever you are considering, just
try it. Part of web design is trial and terror, and you will never know what
works without testing it. Between the web preview feature and the ability to
Publish to the Web and direct the output to your computer where you can
study the files, and test the pages, you will get answers to your questions
a lot faster than posting here. I am not saying that you can't post
questions, but if you backup your files periodically, you can experiment at
will...that's how most of us learned. That's also part of the fun of it.

With that said, I will try to address your concerns. I referenced that
article so you would have a better overall understanding, but David is not
saying that you can't modify his suggestions. Absolutely you can insert your
rectangle anywhere you want. I personally tend to use a background color or
texture, and then individual text boxes that are color filled. I will
frequently use multiple boxes with headings over them to group different
subjects on a page. You can do the same with your autoshapes, or you can
make your autoshape as long as your content. The point I was trying to make
was that if you make your autoshape 4000+ pixels long, that is how long the
page will be when it is converted to html. It is because Publisher truncates
the page after the last design element, that it gives you a long page to
start with. If you have only 600 pixels of material on your page that is how
long it will be when it is converted to html. But it also gives you the
option of making the page almost literally as long as you want.

I wouldn't use a 1024 pixel wide page if I were you. Your background color
will fill the screen regardless of how big it is...that is the padding.

DavidF

 

[Reiki plus]

Thanks for all your help...I just finished the web site and published it to
the web...I had difficulty with this but referred to your most excellent web
site TechTrax and this resolved all of my issues. I am grateful for your
knowledge and that you are there to help all of us newbies)