Publisher Web Page/compatibility with IE8

[ep6]

I have a web page created with Publisher 2007. It works as expected until I
downloaded Internet Explore 8. The "compatibility mode" does not work. Is
there a solution to this?

 

[Spike]

There are two (2) known solutions thus far.

(1) : Workaround

Create a web site with nav bars etc.
Saved web site as "My web site.pub"
With the pub page open
Ctrl a (selects all)

Arrange > Ungroup

This insures that all groups are ungrouped
This must be done on ALL pages individually
Re-Saved using Save As "My web site NBUG.pub"
I take the step to "Save As" so that when I shut down publisher and I get a
prompt to save my changes I do NOT overwrite the master file "My web
site.pub" accidentally.
Publish to the web
FTP to the server
Web site works using IE 8

If a change, update is required or a page is added
Open with "My web site.pub"
Make changes
Follow the above suggestions
BTW NBUG = "Nav Bars Un Grouped"

(2) Upgrade Office 2007 with SP2

There have been some problems reported that after SP2 was installed the user
could not open previous saved 2007 publisher files. For myself, I have
office 2007 SP2 using Vista OS and have not had any problems using SP2 and
the websites function with IE 8.

Keep a watch on this thread as I feel that you will see more contributors to
this question.

Spike

 

[ep6]

I used the "workaround" and ungrouped all the items in the site. I then
downloaded/upgraded to IE8 and the site works nicely. I had previously
downloaded SP2, but that did not solve the problem. Ungrouping (although
inconvenient) seems to be the answer for now. Thanks.

 

[Peter Richardson]

I followed your suggestions on my web site, having been guided thereby a guy
at MS in the Netherlands. Unfortunately my web site still fails to open in
IE8. IE7 works fine. MS don't appear to offer a solution, is there an
alternative web design programme which could open publisher web sites in a
different format which is compatible with IE8 or is there some other trick
which solves the problem?

SP2 doesn't seem to make any difference, I uninstalled it, but the result
was the same, and when I re-installed it nothing changed.

Peter Richardson

 

[DavidF]

Please post a link to your website.

Also please explain more specifically what you mean when you say "my web
site still fails to open in IE8". Are you saying the site will not render at
all, or that the navbar or other parts of the page won't render? Also what
version of Publisher are you using?

DavidF

 

[Peter Richardson]

www.piling-solutions.com

The only thing which appears on the screen when someone tries to open the
page in IE8 is a horizontal green bar. The same applies whether I use a link
to a specific page in the web site or wheter I use the direct URL for the
home page.

The web site was created in Publisher 2007, the site opens normally in IE2007

 

[DavidF]

I suspect that you confused Spike's directions. It appears that almost
everything on the page is grouped together, as almost all is combined into
one large image file when viewed with FireFox:
http://www.piling-solutions.com/index_files/image1024.gif
Grouped design elements will render OK in IE7 and older, but are converted
to an image for FireFox and not rendered at all in IE8.

Here is one of your pages that I happened upon that does not have some of
the text grouped with the rest of the page:
http://www.piling-solutions.com/index_files/Page544.htm
Notice that the text renders as does that single green bar.

Open your Publisher file, click on the first page, go to Edit > Select All
and then to Arrange > Ungroup. Now do a web page preview. Assuming that you
are using IE8, your page should render correctly. Does it?

Assuming that ungrouping the pages does work, then you will need to check
each page for grouped elements. While the SP2 patch will allow both the
navbar and other grouped elements to render in IE8, it does not change the
fact that grouped elements other than the navbar are combined into an image
for FF. While you would still be able to see the content, it is still not
desirable to have it all combined into one big image. So you can manually
ungroup each page as a whole if you don't care about uncoupling the navbar
wizard. If you do, then go through each page and ungroup everything except
the navbar, and run the SP2 to fix the navbar issue separately.

If you have problems spotting those other elements that are grouped
together, publish your web files to your local computer and view the files
in the index_files folder in thumbnail view. You should be able to spot the
text boxes and such that have been converted to images that way.

DavidF

 

[Peter Richardson]

DavidF & Spike,
Thanks for the advice. As a complete and utter computer dummy the advice was
sorely needed. I followed Spike's advice correctly however messed up on the
uploading software. I realised this after checking the pages again on
publisher and finding no groupings at all. I then did web page preview and
they all opened, I guess the correct phrase is rendered, in IE8. So then I
went back through all the uploading procedures and now everything seems all
right except one hyperlink on the 1st page doesn't work any longer, I've
tried deleting it and re-installing it but it doesn't work. Other than that
everything in the web site now appears to work in IE8.

Thanks again for the advice, if you have any idea why one link shouldn't
work any further adviuce would be welcome.

 

[DavidF]

Thanks for posting back.

The home page look renders ok now in IE7 and FF3 without the text being
converted to an image. Sounds like you just didn't get the new pages
uploaded the first time around.

I couldn't spot the link that you were talking about, unless you were
talking about "For Sale - zu Verkaufen - a vendre" . That text appears to be
just underlined without an active hyperlink. Try removing the underline
formatting from the text and reinserting the hyperlink. If you are talking
about a different link, please be specific.

I would suggest that you do plan on downloading and installing FireFox
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ and test your pages with it as well as
IE8. If you can get all your pages to render and look good in both then your
pages will most likely look and work well in most of the major browsers.
Seems to me that since you went to the trouble of doing your site in three
languages, that you should take the extra step.

If you do install FF and view your site, you will notice that some of your
images do not look as good in FF as they do in IE. You can probably fix that
by compressing the pictures before you upload again. This will also result
in your pages loading more quickly.

Reference: Compress Pictures dialog box (2007):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100363901033.aspx?pid=CL100605171033

DavidF

 

[Peter Richardson]

I'll follow up on your advice with Firefox. The missing link as it were is
the UK flag on the Index page, the French and German flags link through to
the respective home pages, the UK flag doesn't. The links in the text on the
index page all work but the flag doesn't went it's uploaded. Strangely it
does work in web page preview.

Peter Richardson

 

[DavidF]

Interesting...it doesn't work in IE7 either, but it does works in FF3. How
is the UK flag formatted, hyperlinked or arranged differently than the other
flags?

I am guessing here, but try selecting it > Arrange > Order > Bring to
Front...

Perhaps remove and reinsert the hyperlink...

Perhaps remove and reinsert the picture of the flag and insert hyperlink...

Perhaps put a 'hotspot' hyperlink over the flag. The hotspot hyperlink is
the little green ball icon with the hash marked square around it in the left
hand column.

There is something that you did to the UK flag that you did different than
with the other flags...figure that out and you will probably find the
reason.

DavidF

 

[THANKS! THIS WORKED!]

There are two (2) known solutions thus far.

(1) : Workaround

Create a web site with nav bars etc.
Saved web site as "My web site.pub"
With the pub page open
Ctrl a (selects all)
This insures that all groups are ungrouped
This must be done on ALL pages individually
Re-Saved using Save As "My web site NBUG.pub"
I take the step to "Save As" so that when I shut down publisher and I get a
prompt to save my changes I do NOT overwrite the master file "My web
site.pub" accidentally.
Publish to the web
FTP to the server
Web site works using IE 8

If a change, update is required or a page is added
Open with "My web site.pub"
Make changes
Follow the above suggestions
BTW NBUG = "Nav Bars Un Grouped"

(2) Upgrade Office 2007 with SP2

There have been some problems reported that after SP2 was installed the user
could not open previous saved 2007 publisher files. For myself, I have
office 2007 SP2 using Vista OS and have not had any problems using SP2 and
the websites function with IE 8.

Keep a watch on this thread as I feel that you will see more contributors to
this question.

Spike