Re: automating link changes

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Though the PNG files may be a bit larger than GIF or JPG files and take a
bit longer to load but you *may* still elect to leave the 'allow png...'
option checked under some circumstances. But *do* use the Publisher compress
graphics tool on all the graphics in your publication and that will reduce
the file size and load time. The PNG version of some wordart and some images
will be superior quality to the gif versions in FireFox on some occasions.
Experiment with the PNG option if you find the gif image versions
unacceptable, or just compress the graphics and leave the png option
checked.

DavidF

"Richard Johnson" <RichardJohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:991AC171-0A8F-4D43-A21C-8782916D0340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Spike

the PNGs are all Publisher generated.... 1065 is a small 4 button navbar,
and is only 4kb. I'd have thought that a "portable network graphic" file
would be fast ....

I think Publisher PNG's any grouped item.... and seems to also PNG some
headings etc for some reason (but not all of them)

I'll have a try at compression on the desktop (compression within
Publisher
+ web page view) and see... but I think I did that once before and wasn't
impressed....

I did resize some images within publisher and I think that keeps the
original size data as well as the resized visual image, and wonder if that
might be the root cause of some of the slowness... I'll see if I can
discard
that extra data selectively or replace them with already sized
pictures....

as always, thanks to you and David for sharing your time, its greatly
appreciated as are any insights into doing things better.


JPGs....

"Spike" wrote:

Richard

A closer look reveals that your are using PNG images
src="index_files/image1065.png

This may be why they load slowly
Someone on here who is more familiar with the PNG issue may help out here

Spike

"Richard Johnson" <RichardJohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:6BF4E541-D66B-4DB6-8D1D-FCF125547994@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Spike

no, I haven't. They weren't large in most cases so I left them, but
they
do
seem slow I agree.

Will I lose any resolution if I compress them ... some are already less
sharp than I would like

regards

Richard

"Spike" wrote:

My two cents
Have you compressed you images in publisher?
Seems that they load slowly on my end

Spike

"Richard Johnson" <RichardJohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
message news:FBF6F8EA-7155-4D0B-8727-8EDC78593599@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi David

Sincere thanks

It wasn't intended to go live so soon, but in transferring from one
provider
to another my original site was dropped totally so I had no real
choice
as
I
didn't have a backup thanks to a recent crash of one of the office
computers
drives!

I've already started dropping grouping allt together as well as many
text
boxes reformatting pages for FF and also discovered if I always make
images
"inline" rather than exact they seem to stay where they should
relative
to
text anywhere on the page in both IE and FF, and two test pages
arealready
reporting as good, so its just a matter of checking and changing
now...

(This was necessary for more than Firefox - even in IE6/7, if the
images
were left as exact" they moved relative to text, which drove me
crazy...
and
back to grouping without thinking of the consequencesm so grouping
was
a
later error - I do also confess I got complacent and didn't
continuously
check with FF so my own silly fault)

However there's nothing I now can't fix thanks largely to your help.

Re the menus etc: Yes, but I didn't not flow through on your advice
which
was invaluable - I read every bit of advised info from last time and
totally
re-thought it through. I had actually intended to split the site but
things
were going well so I just kept on... My bad.

Maintenance won't be too hard though as I do have my head around the
site
structure pretty well and have renamed each page very carefully, but
I
do
hear you about the complexity of the menus, and once this existing
structure
is working to my satisfaction presentation wise, I will get some
client
feedback about how they'd like to see it and go back and redo it...
and
add
secure shopping at the same time.

I'm already doodling a new site tree to talk through with a couple
of
firends.

I really am a novice web wise though so will have to learn a little
about
server side programmes and understand them before I make the
changes...

Sincere thanks for your patience - and ongoing help. I will post
back
if
any
more issues - and for the sake of positive completion, when things
are
sorted
properly.

Richard

"DavidF" wrote:

Hi Richard,

Lots of questions and two threads starting. I will address the IE8
issues
in
the other thread.

Richard, as per using Publisher to build your site we discussed a
lot
of
this in great detail before. At that time I did warn you that the
bigger
and
more complex the site, the harder it would be to maintain with
Publisher,
and the more likely you would be better off using a different
program.
I
also suggested strongly that if you wanted to proceed that you
should
break
your site up and produce it with multiple Publisher files, using
multiple
folders or subdirectories. At this point I am beginning to think
that
given
the direction you seem to be taking your site, you might be better
off
developing your site with ASP.net or PHP...or some other server
side
database program.

I see that you have tried to color code and organize your site
using
multiple navbars, but to be honest the organization just seems too
complicated and confusing from the user view point, and I can't
imagine
trying to keep it organized and managed from your view point. There
is
no
content on your site that you can't produce with Publisher, and
with
some
tweaking make all the pages cross browser compatible, but the
navigation
system and the way you have things organized are too confusing for
me
and
are where you might be better off with a different program. I know
you
have
worked really hard on the navigation, but the overall structure of
your
site
still needs work in my opinion, and ultimately it may be that a
server
side
data base program might be a better way to manage it.

As per the cross browser issues. The most common errors I see with
Pub
2003
and 2007:

Grouping - if you group a text box with hyperlinked text to any
other
design
element, Publisher will convert all those grouped elements into a
combined
image for FireFox, which will kill the link. Make sure to ungroup
everything
on all pages. Applying the Office 2007 SP2 does not fix this issue
for
FireFox.

Fill colors and borders - Publisher converts gradient fill colors
and
fancy
borders to images much as it does for grouped elements. Use single
color
fills and simply borders as a rule. If you want to use a gradient
fill,
then
put the fill in a second text box and layer it behind the text box
without
the fill. You can use the same technique for fancy borders.

Test your pages in FF as you build them. Publish your web files to
your
local computer and open the index_files folder and look at the
files
in
thumbnail view. You should be able to spot text boxes that have
been
converted to images, and grouped elements converted to images. You
can
also
do a web page preview, left click, drag across text to try to
select
it...if
you can't, then it has been converted to an image.

The other major area of cross browser compatibility has to do with
how
Publisher processes images. Under some circumstances Publisher
produces
lower quality copies of images for FireFox and other non-IE
browsers.
Always
use the Compress pictures feature.

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

This will resolve most of the image quality issues. The other part
is
how
Publisher makes a lower quality gif file of some word art and other
graphics. There are several workaround for this, but one quick fix
that
takes care of most of the problems, you are already doing. Under
tools
>
Options > Web tab you can opt to "allow PNG...". When you choose
this
option, Publisher produces PNG files for the word art, instead of
GIF
files
and in general the PNG files, albeit larger in file size, are
better
quality. If you uncheck that option and produce your web files and
preview
them in FF, you will see a number of lower quality gif files. For
now
your
best option is to just stay with the PNG file option.

I will stop at this point. If you fix all the grouping, border, and
fill
color issues and still have a FF compatibility issue then post back
and
give
me a link to the page and the specifics of what is not working as
intended,
then I can help you with that.

DavidF

"Richard Johnson" <RichardJohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
in
message news:ADDDC8C3-1398-4909-8AF2-E71BBE87C817@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cheers David - OK, I'll stop being lazy!

Yes, I have underscores in all filenames and folders.

I loaded SP2 and no problems with opening files etc, so recreated
all
pages
and re-uploaded... I don't have IE8 to check but hopefully now
they
are
OK -
is there a way to check without installing IE8 (or can I have
both
on
one
PC?)?

URL is www.dccconcepts.com

Now on to fixing all the pages that still display strangely in
Firefox!

Question: I get the feeling I'm pushing S**t uphill with
publisher
with
a
site this size.... (actually, thinking back, you did warn me
:-) ).

Is there either a set of do's and dont's with MS publisher to
avoid
firefox
etc conflicts, or should I perhaps look for a wysywyg web
creation
package
or
splash out on something like dreamweaver or elements... lots of
$$
but
if
I
should, I will.

As always, sincere thanks for using your free time to help me.

Richard




"DavidF" wrote:

Sorry, but after you write the link once it should take you
about
20
seconds
to change each one. Just be sure to test the first couple and
make
sure
that
you are writing the links correctly, so that you don't have to
redo
them
a
second time. And by the way, I am assuming that your subfolder
is
called
'PDF_dowloads' and not 'PDF downloads'. You probably know that
you
should
avoid spaces, special characters etc in the folder or file
names,
correct?

The Office 2007 SP2 does fix the problem with the Publisher 2007
navbars
not
rendering in IE8. Your confusion is probably that some people
have


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