How can I get my Publisher website to be viewed by MAC users?

[Four Part Jas]

My Publisher website cannot be viewed by MAC visitors. Is there any way
around this? Is there anyway to make my site viewable to all visitors? Please
Help!!

 

[DavidF]

Go to Tools > Options > Web tab and uncheck "rely on vml..." and "allow
png...". That will fix most of the cross browser problems. If you have
others, please post links to the pages, and further details as to the
problems.

If you download and install FireFox, which is a relatively small download,
you can then test your site against FF. If you get the site working for both
IE and FF, you will find it works in most browsers.

DavidF

 

[Four Part Jas]

Thank you so much for responding to my post. I really appreciate it. I did
uncheck the two options but the graphics and pictures and border, practically
nothing on the site is visible besides the links. Here are the two websites:

ruwachenjasmine.org
jasminebates.com

Thanks for your help.

 

[DavidF]

You didn't specify which version of Publisher you are using, but I will
assume Pub 2003 or 2007.

When I load http://ruwachenjasmine.org/ in FireFox it appears that while you
may have made the changes I suggested, you didn't update your site. The page
loads and looks like you did not make the settings changes I suggested. Did
you upload the new files? You may need to delete the old files off the
server. The same is true of your other site.

When you produce your files, do you use Publish to the Web to produce the
index.htm file and the index_files folder?

Are you using a master page? If you are, don't. Move everything off the
master page onto the main pages.

Run the design checker under Tools.

This doesn't directly affect the ability to view the site in FF or by MACs,
but you really need to compress your images...they are very large and
verrrrrry slow loading. Reference: Compress graphics file sizes to create
smaller Publisher Web pages:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA011266301033.aspx

And by the way, the red on black text is almost impossible to read. You
might consider switching to white or a better contrasting text color.

DavidF

 

[TonyaG]

Hi David,
I followed your advice for my site too. It worked! I'm so happy, I can see
my site in FF. I couldn't before. I thought I was going to have to start
all over, and learn a new web building program. So thanks again! However,
the navigation bar does not work. Can you help me with that?

 

[DavidF]

Without seeing your site, I would guess that you are talking about the
bottom navbar? If so, then select it > Arrange and ungroup it from the
navbar wizard and it should work. If not, post back with a link to a problem
page.

DavidF

 

[TonyaG]

Thanks for getting back with me. I have three sites. They work fine in IE.
I have been trying to get them right in FF. These are the problems I'm
having.
tonyatv.biz -a lot of the hyperlinks don't work.
imshownoff.com- the navigation bar at the top does not work
shownoffcosmetics.com- it is still distorted

 

[DavidF]

Starting with imshownoff, you have converted the whole page to one huge
image, which will kill the links. Look at:
http://imshownoff.com/index_files/image554.png
It may be the border you have put around everything. Remove the border and
see if that fixes it.

Same problem with:
http://tonyatv.biz/index_files/image2247.png
and
http://shownoffcosmetics.com/index_files/image1059.png

Your pages are way too wide and require horizontal scrolling. I would
suggest no wider than 984 pixels and under 800 is most common.

Be sure to go to Tools > Options > Web tab and uncheck "rely on VML..." and
"allow png...". Also use the compress images tool:
Reference: Compress graphics file sizes to create smaller Publisher Web
pages:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA011266301033.aspx

Try removing the border and testing again. If the links still don't work,
check to see if you have them grouped with any other design element and
ungroup. And test to see if the link has been converted to an image. You can
do that by trying to select text with a left click drag across the text on
the web page. If you can't select the text, then you have converted to an
image. The deconstruct the page by removing or dragging components into the
scratch area, or removing formatting until you find what is converting the
links to an image. Then you will know what is causing the problems. If you
still can't figure something out, post back with the specifics, and we will
try to help you sort it out.

DavidF

 

[TonyaG]

Hi David,
First let me say that I can't tell you how great it is to finally get help
from someone who knows all about this program. Everyone else I ask, just
puts down publisher and tells me I need to use something else. So I'm just so
glad for all of your help!

I'm sure you are right about the grouping because I did group everything. I
didn't know about proper dimentions. I was trying to center my site. Can
you tell me the proper way to do that? Everytime I use the box that is
given, my site comes up to the left of the page. I started creating my own
box and positioning over to the right, and I had to group everything, or some
of the objects furthest to the right would not show up in my web page preview.

About Compressing-I had already gone to microsoft and added the compression
tool a while back. I applied it, and the pictures actually load a little
faster than they did before. Give me your opinion, would you say that it's
annoyingly slow to someone who is looking at for the first time?

About the rely on vml and allow png. I did that too.
It made www.imshownoff and www.tonyatv show up correctly in FF,
but not www.shownoffcosmetics.
I reloaded it several times, and double checked the VML etc. but it kept
coming up the same.
I'm going to redo the dimensions and ungroup things like you said, and see
what happens, but could you answer back about the correct to center.
Thanks for all of your help!

 

[DavidF]

Tonya,

Glad to help. Yes, you won't find any serious professional web builder using
Publisher, but if you KISS and realize that it is a different medium than
print, you can produce some decent looking and functional sites pretty
easily. And easily is the main thing. I think it depends on the scope and
goals of your sites. If you keep it simple and the site is going to be
mostly static, you can do some good work with Publisher. Its the person
wielding the tool...not the tool, that is most important...IMHO

One of the things you said about grouping everything, gives a possible hint
as to why www.shownoffcosmetics is not working correctly. It sounds like you
are grouping some things that are off your main publication page in the
scratch area. That is a bozo no no. Go to Edit > Page setup and widen your
page if necessary, or make your content fit, but don't have anything in the
scratch area. I should have also suggested running the design checker under
tools, which probably would have flagged that issue.

With the advantages of using Publisher come limitations, and one of them is
centering the page. You can do it with 2002 and older, but not 2003 or 2007.
The page is left justified and at this point no one has come up with a way
to center the content. While I see no problem with left justified pages, I
understand why some do. You can simulate the effect. Reference:
Understanding background padding in a Publisher web (aka white space) :
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/archive/2006/01/07/80563.aspx
I will say that having to scroll horizontally is much more of a problem for
your viewers than centering. But you can use a wider page and a more narrow
content, and get a similar feeling to centering. Personally I would try a
page width of 984 pixels, and then make your content ~800 pixels wide and
centered. Then at least most people will probably not have to scroll
sideways to read the content and your page will not look left justified.
There is no absolute rules here, but the standard width for pub 2003 pages
was 760 pixels wide...and there were reasons for that. My pages are almost
all 760 and left justified.

As to loading time, it is hard to measure given that the whole page is one
big picture, which indeed takes a long time to download with a dial up
connection. I didn't even bother to try to load the whole thing once I
realized that the page had been converted. Get that issue fixed and post
back and I'll look again.

DavidF

 

[Mike Koewler]

Tonya,

To get an idea of how long it will take for viewers to download your
page, go here: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ and
enter your URL. It will list times for Modem, Broadband, T1 and others,
and tell you the size of the images, scrips, etc. It's well worth
bookmarking the page.

Mike