Firefox Compatibility, Pub2007

External Since: Apr 19, 2009 Posts: 1

I don't think I need to comment any further on the technicalities of the
issues raised here, but from this short exchange alone you will I hope have
gained some impression of the depth of limitations, difficulties, hidden
problems, unavoidable compromises and pain in store for the Publisher user
in making web pages. Most of this will not be immediately apparent to the
uninitiated and some will only emerge months or years later, but can
nonetheless be foreseen. It's supposed to be easy.

As for this newsgroup, it is obvious there are motives not consistent with
the best interests of the reader at work here, but it really isn't the place
to find a balanced discussion, or even to glean much useful information, on
general techniques for making good web pages or the pros and cons of page
editing tools.

"DavidF" <Nope.TakeThisOut@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:%23KWmauJwJHA.6068@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Warden,
>
> You are welcome.
>
> While it certainly your choice to use Publisher or another program to
> build
> your site, be advised that the other person that answered your question is
> our resident troll. Unfortunately his primary mission here is to not help
> people, it is to convince people to not use Publisher to build websites,
> and
> sometimes attack those of us that help people here. Even more
> unfortunately
> he does have some knowledge and can appear credible, but obviously he does
> not understand how to use Publisher correctly, as you can tell by his
> answer
> about what was causing the ftp issue. You probably know the type...just
> enough knowledge to be dangerous <g>. Much of the rest of what he had to
> say
> is also inaccurate, and certainly his suggestion that you need to use a
> different program. If you want to stay with Publisher we will be able to
> help you work through all the other issues you might have with your site.
> Your choice.
>
> I noticed that you are concerned about some of the poor quality images
> that
> are rendered in FireFox. While you weren't specific I can see that your
> 'banner' area image needs some tweaking. If you were to look in your
> 'index_files' folder in thumbnail view on your local computer, you would
> see
> this image: http://www.alal.co.uk/index_files/image468.gif As you can see
> all the elements you have used in your 'banner' have been converted to one
> combined, low quality .gif image. This is usually caused by 'grouping'
> different elements together. When you do that Publisher makes a combined
> image of all the elements that are grouped together and serves up that
> image
> in FF.
>
> Assuming that is the problem, the fix is probably as simple as ungrouping
> the elements from each other. Chances are when you click on any of those
> design elements, you will see a grouping icon at the bottom which looks
> like
> a couple boxes overlapping each other. Just click that icon and this
> ungroups the elements from each other. If you don't recognize the grouping
> icon, you can also go to Arrange > Ungroup. While grouping elements
> together
> so that you can drag them around while you are designing and laying out
> your
> pages is a handy tool, be sure to ungroup them before you publish your web
> files.
>
> Now to test this, rather than take the time to upload new web files, when
> you 'Publish to the Web' direct your index.htm file and the index_files
> folder to somewhere on your computer where you can easily find them. I
> direct them to a test folder I keep on my desktop for this purpose. After
> publishing new files, go to the 'index.htm' file (your home page) or the
> other *.htm files (your other pages) in the 'index_files' folder, right
> click > Open with > FireFox. This way you can preview what your pages will
> look like in FF before you upload. You can also just open FF > File > Open
> File and browse to where you directed your .htm files on your computer if
> you prefer.
>
> Now to the follow up on the comments in the second post by our favorite
> troll about how Publisher handles images, his answer and information is
> again inaccurate and misleading and again demonstrates his ignorance of
> how Publisher works. I will explain with a specific example. On your home
> page you have this image: http://www.alal.co.uk/index_files/image332.jpg .
> I
> suspect that after you inserted your original .jpg image you resized the
> picture box to get the size and proportion you wanted on your web page. I
> also suspect that you then used the 'compress pictures' tool on that image
> because it has been 'resampled' from the original size and resolution to a
> 384 X 256 pixel image at 96 dpi. This is exactly the correct thing to do
> with Publisher. Now if you had inserted a large, high resolution image
> and
> changed the size of the picture box, and not used the 'compress
> pictures' tool Publisher would have made either a low resolution .gif
> image
> copy of that .jpg or possibly a resized jpg for FF and other non-IE
> browsers, and also made a copy of the original jpg for IE. Unfortunately
> that original high resolution image would take a long time to load in IE
> and
> if Publisher made a .gif copy for FF it would be low quality. You can test
> and confirm this for yourself. Try this experiment.
>
> Open a blank Publisher web page. Insert either your original high
> resolution/large .jpg image that we talked about above or another high
> resolution image. Now resize the picture box to less than the original
> size
> of that image. Then without using the 'compress pictures' tool, Publish to
> the web and direct your output to that test folder on your desktop. Open
> the
> index_files folder and look at the contents in thumbnail view (View >
> Thumbnails). You will see at least two copies of the image that you just
> inserted. It may be two jpg images or a jpg and a gif. Now switch to
> Details
> view, and if you have the Size showing, notice the difference in file
> size...or if you don't have the size showing in Details view you can also
> just right click the thumbnail > properties and it will show you the
> difference in file size. In fact if you compare the file size of the
> larger
> one, you will notice that it is the same file size as your original
> image...it is simply a copy of that original.
>
> Now, go back to the Pub file > Select the image > and find the 'compress
> pictures' button on the Picture Toolbar and click. On the dialog that
> comes
> up choose 'Web' under 'Target Output'. Now Publish to the Web again and
> again go to the index_files folder. Now you will see only one copy of your
> image, and that copy will have been resampled and compressed, and it will
> be
> the image that is rendered in IE and in FF and other browsers. If you open
> that copy in a graphics editor such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or
> Irfanview which is a good freebie, you will also see that the picture is
> now
> 96dpi. As I said, our resident troll has just enough knowledge to be
> dangerous as he is misleading people.
>
> As per his comments about using the Master Page feature in Publisher, once
> again I would suggest you ignore him as once again he demonstrates that
> not
> only does he not understand how Publisher works, but he is dogmatic about
> his views even when he is wrong and in spite of when given evidence to the
> contrary. Besides one of the biggest advantages of using Publisher is that
> you should never need to look at or directly edit the HTML coding in a
> Publisher web. You change your pages by changing your design, layout or
> formatting in the original Pub file and when you Publish to the web, the
> Publisher html coding engine handles all the coding in the background just
> as you did by properly moving the design elements off the Master Page.
> Much
> easier than learning how to write and edit code...
>
> Now, as per the fonts. I notice that you are using 'Cambria'. This is not
> a
> 'web safe font' which are fonts that most people have on their computers.
> Select any of your text boxes > Format > Fonts. In that Font dialog notice
> the option box 'Show only Web Fonts'. Check that box and now you will see
> a
> list of the fonts that you can safely use on the web. If you choose to use
> a
> non-web safe font frequently what will happen is that Publisher will
> convert
> that text into an image, which as a rule you would not want to do. Text
> that
> has been converted to an image cannot be read by the search engine webbots
> when they index your site, or by text readers. One exception to this rule
> in
> my opinion would be if you were using a specialty font in a logo, a banner
> or some other design element where the design is more important than the
> text. In that case you could add an Alt tag to the image, and that would
> be
> read and indexed by the search engines and read by the text readers. So,
> while I did not search out where you were using Cambria, you should
> consider
> changing the font. Oh, and by the way...it would probably not matter what
> program you used to produce your site. If you use a non-web font and the
> viewer does not have that font installed on their computer, then the
> browser
> will usually substitute in what it thinks is a suitable replacement, and
> your design will still not be as you intended. Best to use web fonts in a
> web page, but if you are using it in a logo, etc. post back and I will
> explain how best to use it in that capacity.
>
> Now, as to the text on your navbar buttons. The reason that text is
> 'fuzzy'
> is again because it has been converted to an image for FF. Each button on
> your navbar is made up of several design elements. Usually it is a
> background image, a text box and a 'hotspot link' box. All those elements
> are grouped together and you can again select the navbar > Arrange >
> Ungroup
> and that will fix the text. However, before you do this you should know
> that
> it will also 'disengage' the navbar from the Publisher navbar wizard. This
> means that if you decide to add another page then a new navbar button will
> not be added and propagated throughout your site. In that case you would
> need to rebuild your navbar, but that would not be that difficult with as
> few pages as you have. However, you might want to wait a few weeks until
> the
> new Office 2007 SP2 is released, as it sounds like it is going to fix some
> things, and one of them is likely to be this navbar issue. I can elaborate
> on that if you want, but it is a longer discussion, that you can read in
> my
> reply to the post " Re: Buttons disapear on my web page with IE" by
> bradedwards17 the 17th . The short explanation is that it *sounds like*
> the
> SP2 will fix the navbar issue and may even fix the 'grouping' issue that
> you
> are currently having with your banner.
>
> Reference: Navigation bars and other content is missing from Publisher
> HTML
> output in Internet Explorer 8: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969705
>
> Once again our resident troll misleads and tries to scare people by
> suggesting that there are major problems with Publisher webs being
> compatible with IE8. The only compatibility issue reported thus far is
> this
> 'grouping' issue and it is easily fixed by ungrouping.
>
> I will stop now, but if you have other questions please post back. Once
> again, there is absolutely no need to switch to a different program if you
> don't want to. Obviously if you just tweak a couple things with your
> design
> and formatting, your site will look good in both IE and FF, and as a
> result
> will also look good in all the major browsers. Also be ready for a follow
> up
> to my post by our troll. He will find some term I used or something that I
> didn't explain exactly right, bring up some other totally irrelevant or
> spurious argument against using Publisher...or he will resort to a
> personal
> attack or name calling, because the reality is there is no logical,
> rational reason to not use Publisher to build your site. But as I said, it
> is your choice...good luck.
>
> DavidF
>
>
>
>
> "Warden" <Warden.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:C02BA10B-4665-497C-BC04-CEBC7AB494C2@microsoft.com...
>> Thank you, DavidF, you hit the nail on the head! I had used the master
>> page
>> as I normally do with any publication. When I dragged copies onto the
>> individual pages and re-uploaded, I no longer had the authentication
>> request
>> on Firefox. I never would have guessed that fix! In case others think it
>> was
>> a coincidence, I uploaded several times yesterday with stuff on the
>> master
>> page, and the authentication request appeared every time.
>>
>> "DavidF" wrote:
>>
>>> This usually is caused by having pictures and other design elements on
>>> the
>>> Master Page. Go to View > Master Page and if you are putting anything
>>> there,
>>> drag those elements off into the scratch area, switch back to the main
>>> page
>>> and drag the elements onto that page. It is unfortunate but the Master
>>> Page
>>> feature works fine in a print publication but does not work consistently
>>> in
>>> a web publication and you should not use it.
>>>
>>> DavidF
>>>
>>> "Warden" <Warden.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>>> news:4161A533-C359-45F1-94AC-8D4B5411E5F9@microsoft.com...
>>> > Website created on Pub2007 works fine on IE7, but on Firefox after a
>>> > few
>>> > seconds I get a dialogue box headed "Authentication Required" and
>>> > asking
>>> > for
>>> > user name and password for ftp://alal.co.uk. (My web address is
>>> > http://www.alal.co.uk.) I have to cancel the box a few times to get
>>> > rid
>>> > of
>>> > it, then I find I've lost contact with the host and can't change
>>> > pages.
>>> > Connection remains broken even if Firefox is closed down and
>>> > re-started.
>>> > Web host says it's a compatibility issue between Publisher and
>>> > Firefox.
>>> > Any ideas?
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

External Since: Apr 20, 2009 Posts: 3

Sorry folks but it turns out I do need to comment on this again, as I'd
guess that some readers of Davids post may now be even more confused than
before. It turns out that the problem David has seen and which others may
not, is in fact yet another bug/deficiency of Publisher, call it what you
will, but David doesn't seem to have realised that.
If you insert a picture into a web document using the insert->picture option
from the top menu, which I personally never do as the picture will usually
come in at nowhere near the required size and in the wrong place, you will
suffer the incorrect operation of the program roughly as he describes. If
however, you do it by clicking on the picture frame tool in the toolbox and
drawing the box first, it then works as would be expected, and there is no
need to go near the 'compress pictures' button. Slightly ironic really, as
David is always banging on about using the program 'correctly'.

> Open a blank Publisher web page. Insert either your original high
> resolution/large .jpg image that we talked about above or another high
> resolution image. Now resize the picture box to less than the original
> size
> of that image. Then without using the 'compress pictures' tool, Publish to
> the web and direct your output to that test folder on your desktop. Open
> the
> index_files folder and look at the contents in thumbnail view (View >
> Thumbnails). You will see at least two copies of the image that you just
> inserted. It may be two jpg images or a jpg and a gif. Now switch to
> Details
> view, and if you have the Size showing, notice the difference in file
> size...or if you don't have the size showing in Details view you can also
> just right click the thumbnail > properties and it will show you the
> difference in file size. In fact if you compare the file size of the
> larger
> one, you will notice that it is the same file size as your original
> image...it is simply a copy of that original.
>