Webpage Size?

[RobbyL]

Hi, I'm using Publisher 2007. I'm trying to make a webpage. Instead of using
one of the templates I want to start from scratch. How do I know what size
template to use? I'm trying the 760 x 4608px right now. Do I need to keep my
pictures in the white block area? Seems like kind of a small area to work in.
Can I change it to landsape because it seems to be portrait. Thanks for your
help in advance.

 

[DavidF]

Publisher 2007 suggests three default page widths, with 760 pixels wide the
middle one and 984 being the widest. I would not go wider than that if I
were you. Around 800 pixels wide has been the standard for a long time, but
that is changing a bit. And yes, you need to keep everything on the working
page and out of the scratch area. I would suggest that you do a little
reading before jumping in, as you need to change your mindset. Web media is
different than print media.

Reference: Prepare, publish, and maintain your Publisher Web site:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA100947601033.aspx

And then you might want to peruse the articles on this page: Designing and
creating Web sites :
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/CH100793371033.aspx

DavidF

 

[RobbyL]

Thank you for all of the information David. I appreciate it.

 

[DavidF]

You are welcome....hope it works out.

DavidF

Thank you for all of the information David. I appreciate it.

 

[MKay]

Hello. I have Publisher 2007 and made a website that I'm almost pleased
with. I tried to change the web page to 800 wide, but it doesn't stay that
way. Each time I save and preview, it's got too much white space on the
side, good for if I wanted ads there but I don't. How do I fix this? Thanks
for your help.

 

[DavidF]

You might be talking about two different things. Look under File > Page
setup to see what width the page is. As 800 pixels is not a default width,
you would use Custom Page Size to create one that is 800 pixels.

What you might be talking about is that an 800 pixel wide...or a 760 pixel
wide page is left justified on your monitor, and does not fill the whole
screen, or leaves too much "white space" to the right of the page. That is
called padding.

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

There is no built-in mechanism for centering a Publisher web page, but we do
have a method to manually edit the html code to center the page, but it must
be done each time you change your pages. Post back if you want the
instructions.

DavidF

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

Don't.

At 800 wide it will force horizontal scrolling in many viewer's
browsers...you have to leave some room for browser chrome, that's why one
default is 760.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Giordano
Microsoft MVP Expression

 

[MKay]

I never could get it centered. I've found a lot of forums with people
complaining about the same thing. With so many complaints, the real question
is why doesn't Microsoft fix the problem? I'm not interested in buying and
working on a whole new program and spending all the time again. It's hard to
find a simple work-around where you don't have to change the coding each time
you update the website.

Although I really appreciate the weblinks here, many pertain to the older
versions of Publisher and don't help with this issue. I was hoping to see
updated blogs but no such luck.

Microsoft: help!

 

[Don Schmidt]

Some of the folks here are very knowledgeable on all the Publisher versions.
Best to state which version you are using to create your website. As for
centering, Publisher 2000 and 2002 are the easiest to center and there have
been some postings on centering later versions of Publisher websites.
ReplaceInFiles, a freebee program makes it an easy chore to add the
centering coding.

http://www.emurasoft.com/index.htm

As for website creating, Publisher isn't a Lamborghini, it's more like a
Massey Ferguson. ;-)

I'm a Publisher 2000 user and find for me, it does get the wheat in.

 

[MKay]

Per earlier post, I'm using 2007. Today I re-installed an old FrontPage CD
and you can view the source code and make global changes, making it easier to
update your site without updating code each time. If Publisher thought to
have the code screen - I use a split screen, they'd make it easier.

If you use ReplaceInFiles, it looks like you have to do this each time you
change the site.

I think I'll import into FrontPage, update the code, then import into
Publisher and upload.

The point is that Microsoft should be listening to all these issues and
fixing them. Some of the postings I've seen have just said to go get another
product, and that shouldn't be necessary.

 

[Don Schmidt]

You are correct, I have to use ReplaceInfFiles each time I update my
websites. It's two mouse clicks, one to start ReplaceInFiles and one to run
the update.

 

[DavidF]

Excuse me but though your complaints are valid, I think you have some
unrealistic expectations about Publisher's web building capability.

Why don't you just use FrontPage to build your site to begin with? Probably
because even though it was specifically designed for building websites, it
also has limitations. There is no such thing as a perfect program...every
program has its limitations. Publisher is primarily a DTP with limited web
building capability. It is intended for relatively simple, small, static
sites. By design it produces a left justified, fixed width page with
absolute positioning. It is not an code editor. If you want a code editor,
use FrontPage, or the new Web Expression...or one of the other zillion code
editors out there. We who choose to use Publisher for building webs are
willing to make the tradeoff because of convenience and ease of use, and
learn to workaround the limitations, and change our design as necessary. You
also have that choice.

Yes, it would be great if MS would add the option of centering the web pages
in Publisher, but it isn't going to happen in the near future. And I suspect
that there is little motivation to improve Publisher much, because MS wants
people who outgrow Publisher or find it too limiting to buy Web Expression.
I still use MS Works 4.5 because it offers everything a small business
person needed. In fact it was so good that every version since then through
9 has been dummied down, with functionality stripped from the program. Why?
Cuz if they didn't there would be little motivation for most people to
invest in Office.

As Don suggests, once you get things set up correctly, you can use
replaceinfiles to edit the code of Publisher web pages with two clicks and
produce pages that will center dynamically. If you don't want to do that,
then David Bartosik suggested ways of simulating a centered page in the
article I referenced. It and other articles may seem outdated, but since all
versions of Publisher produce left justified pages, it is still relevant.
The difference is that this group has figured out workarounds for centering
pages, since he wrote that article. If you want the directions for centering
Pub 2007 pages, let us know and we will post it.

In the meantime, I would suggest that you are going to end up with a total
mess if you try to import your Pub html into FrontPage, and then back again.
Use one or the other...not both. The code produced by each is very different
and is not compatible.

Just my 2 cents worth...

DavidF

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

It will make a big mess (using FP on Publisher web).

Good luck though!

 

[MKay]

I thought I'd let you know what happened. When I last wrote, I was very
frustrated with the lack of progress, lack of features. I was thinking of
using FrontPage instead, but I had worked hard on my Publisher site and
didn't want to re-do everything. I had used GoLive before, and that was OK
but has quirks, too.

I tested importing into FrontPage and there were some missing parts of the
design, but it would have been workable with some adjustments but not really
worth the trouble.

I have the site uploaded and it is off to the left.

I downloaded ReplaceInFiles and completed it as y'all had instructed, but it
came up with 0 files to change. I am not sure why this didn't work. I
manually inserted into a test file the command </head> <center> and the page
reset to the right, not to the center. It's strange as I took HTML years ago
and it seems it should have worked.

I'm updating my other sites and think I may use FrontPage instead. It's too
bad as I do like some of the Publisher features and have made some nice
fliers, brochures and such with it.

Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it and am sure others do, too.