Publisher Web site incompatible with Internet Explorer 8

[ep6]

Is there a "fix" for the incompatibility of Publisher Web sites with Internet
Explorer 8? My site (created with Publisher 2007) works fine with IE7, but
when I downloaded IE8, only part of the home page is visible and the links do
not work. I subsequently removed IE8 and went back to IE7 but would like to
find a fix for this. The "compatibility mode" in IE8 only give me a message
that the web site is "not functional - created in MS Publisher".

 

[Rob Giordano [MS MVP]]

Try IE8 in Quirks mode, actually since Publisher doesn't create a doctype,
your website should render in IE8 Quirks Mode automatically.

Can we see the web site?...post a link.

 

[DavidF]

The only compatibility issues with Publisher 2003 and 2007 and IE8 RTW
reported thus far are problems associated with 'grouping'. Any design
elements that are 'grouped' together, which includes the Publisher wizard
built navbars, do not render when you view the web page in IE8 . The fix in
general is to ungroup the elements. There is both a manual fix to these
issues and a Service Patch that has been issued to fix it.

Reference: Navigation bars and other content is missing from Publisher HTML
output in Internet Explorer 8: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969705

A manual method of fixing this grouping issue:

Prior to uploading your pages find all text boxes and other design elements
that are grouped together and ungroup. You can save those changes to your
publication. Then make a copy of your publication by doing a 'File > Save
As' and in this copy go to each page > Edit > Select All > Arrange >
Ungroup. This will ungroup the Publisher built navbar and disconnect it from
the wizard, and the navbars will render correctly in IE8. 'Publish to the
Web' from this copy of your publication. When you want to make further
changes in your web, go back to the original Publisher file, make the
corrections there, save your changes, and again make a copy, ungroup the
navbars and produce new web files for uploading. The advantage of this
workflow is that you will not have to rebuild the navbar if you choose to
add a page to the navbar. If you do not need to add a page, you can leave
the navbar ungrouped and skip the step of saving a copy.

This is also fixed with the Office 2007 SP2:

Reference: Description of 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2)
and of Microsoft Office Language Pack 2007 SP2:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=953195

The usual caveat also applies. While I would never recommend to anyone that
they not install any security or service patch, when you install service
patches there can be unintended consequences. You might fix one thing only
to break something else. While I have not had any problems on my test
partition there have been other people who have posted about problems
opening Pub 2007 files after installing the Office 2007 SP2.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=953195
also lists some of the known issues along with some of the things this patch
fixes in Office 2007 applications.

If it were me, I would probably ungroup the navbars manually rather than
install the SP2 for the short term, and wait until MSFT debugs the Office
2007 SP2, rather than risk not being able to open pre-existing Publisher
files.

DavidF

 

[ep6]

I may be in over my head with "quirks" mode. Is that an obvious choice when
downloading IE8? If not, can you provide me with instructions/guidance?

The url is "http://webpages.charter.net/easthigh1954.

I also have a response from DavidF with a "fix" involving ungrouping design
elements. He suggests (with reservations) also downloading SP2, but I'd
rather not create additional problems.

I'll await your response on "quirks" before doing anything else.

 

[DavidF]

Yes Rob. Please explain why the fact that IE8 renders Publisher webs in
quirks mode automatically and by default without changing any settings is a
bad thing. You keep saying that it is, but you never offer any proof. Please
provide links.

DavidF

 

[Eric James]

Yes Rob. Please explain why the fact that IE8 renders Publisher webs in
quirks mode automatically and by default without changing any settings is
a bad thing. You keep saying that it is, but you never offer any proof.
Please provide links.

Did he actually say it's a bad thing? Or are you just wilfully continuing to
fail to understand that the bad thing is that Publisher generates
non-standard invalid html which requires quirks mode?
You can find hundreds of articles for yourself on why invalid html is a bad
thing if you could be bothered to look - try www.google.com.

 

[Rob Giordano [MS MVP]]

It's not a bad thing, it's necessary for IE8 to display your non-standards
html produced by Publisher.
What's bad is bad html.

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

 

[Rob Giordano [MS MVP]]

dang you beat me to it.

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

 

[DavidF]

Good. Now we have established that it is not a 'bad' thing and that loading
a Publisher web in 'quirks mode' is just normal, default behavior in IE8,
FireFox and all modern browsers, just as it is for millions of other webs
besides Publisher webs that are not standards compliant. Furthermore, to be
clear there is no need to 'switch' or change any settings to quirks
mode...it all happens automatically just as it does in other browsers.

"...the large body of legacy documents which rely on the quirks of older
browsers represents an obstacle for browser developers, who wish to improve
their support for standardized HTML and CSS, but also wish to maintain
backward compatibility with older, non-standardized pages.. To maintain
compatibility with the greatest possible number of web pages, modern web
browsers are generally developed with multiple rendering modes: in
"standards mode" pages are rendered according to the HTML and CSS
specifications, while in "quirks mode" attempts are made to emulate the
behavior of older browsers."

So now that we have cleared all that up, you won't need to keep bringing up
this 'red herring' and suggesting or implying there is some reason to be
concerned every time someone asks a question about loading a Publisher web
in IE8, especially since you *know* that the answer to their question is the
'grouping' issue and has nothing to do with how IE8 loads a Pub web in
quirks mode. After all, you are a Microsoft MVP and surely hold yourself to
higher more professional standards than that.

Enough said?

DavidF

 

[DavidF]

As you can probably tell from the other comments in this thread, the fact
that IE8 loads Publisher webs in 'quirks mode' has nothing to do with your
question. It is a 'red herring' issue...that I won't bother getting into
here.

"Quirks mode is essentially a backwards-compatibility mode that enables a
browser to interpret and display content in the way that
pre-"standards-compliant" browsers did".

Nor is there some setting or choice to be made with IE8 to go from quirks
mode to standards mode. IE8 automatically and by default, loads a Publisher
web in quirks mode, just as FireFox and other web browsers do. This is
normal, default behavior. Nor is this unique to Publisher webs. Basically
'Quirks mode' is built in to all modern browsers to render not only
Publisher webs but also the millions of other webs that are also not
'standards compliant code'. The simple answer is you don't need to worry
about the fact that Publisher webs are rendered in quirks mode if you have
tested your site and it renders correctly in IE and FF.

If you want to read more here are some links describing 'quirks', 'standard'
and 'almost standard' mode:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/03/microsoft-s-interoperability-principles-and-ie8.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirks_mode :

"...the large body of legacy documents which rely on the quirks of older
browsers represents an obstacle for browser developers, who wish to improve
their support for standardized HTML and CSS, but also wish to maintain
backward compatibility with older, non-standardized pages.. To maintain
compatibility with the greatest possible number of web pages, modern web
browsers are generally developed with multiple rendering modes: in
"standards mode" pages are rendered according to the HTML and CSS
specifications, while in "quirks mode" attempts are made to emulate the
behavior of older browsers."

IE8 is designed to render webpages in a more 'standards code compliant' mode
than any previous version. In general, many websites built by many different
programs including Publisher do not produce 'standards compliant code' and
have 'compatibility' issues in IE8. If you care to read more about the
details of these general statements here are two
articles:

Reference: Release Notes for Internet Explorer 8: Compatibility issues with
websites:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dd441788.aspx

Reference: MSDN IEBlog:Just The Facts: Recap of Compatibility View:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/02/16/just-the-facts-recap-of-compatibility-view.aspx

------------------

Now back to the point of your question. The only compatibility issue that
has been reported thus far with IE8 is the 'grouping' issue. I gave you a
relatively short answer and explanation, but the bottom line is that you can
either manually fix the 'grouping' issue or install the Office 2007 SP2.
Chances are you won't have any problems, but I feel it is important for
people to know that there have been some reports of people not being able to
open their Pub files...web and print, after installing the patch. In my
view, I would manually fix the grouping issue for a while, and give MSFT a
chance to fix the bug in SP2. It is not that hard and please don't let this
'discussion' about quirks mode confuse you. If you need more explanation,
please post back.

DavidF

 

[red]

Thank You, Thank you, Thank You!!!!
Thought i would go nuts trying to fix this but your simple explanation works.

 

[Eric James]

The only compatibility issue that
has been reported thus far with IE8 is the 'grouping' issue.

It doesn't matter how many times you repeat this, or how big a bucket of
sand you have your head buried in, it is not going to get any less false.
There are problems with Publisher versions post-2000 which manifest
themselves not only in IE8, but also Firefox, Safari et. al., which were not
present in IE7, causing text boxes to overlap, get misplaced or even not
displayed at all. This is not a compatibility issue with IE8 as such, it's
just a result of newer Publisher versions generating duff html which
Microsoft uniquely used to tolerate in earlier IE versions.

( Incidentally, Microsoft have released a new tool to help identify these
sorts of issues, which can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/try-it/superpreview/ Whether it's
actually any good remains to be determined.)

Nor is there some setting or choice to be made with IE8 to go from quirks
mode to standards mode.

This is also wrong. You can set IE8 to render in whatever mode you happen to
fancy from the Tools->Developer Tools window, but most people will obviously
defer to the automatic mode selectors choice.

 

[DavidF]

Thanks for posting back. The feedback is appreciated.

DavidF

 

[ep6]

thanks to all who responded. and I apologize for posting the same question
twice. I downloaded SP2 on 5/5 and saw no adverse changes (I use Vista OS).
The only change came with IE8. I ungrouped everything, downloaded IE8 and
reposted the site. All is working fine now. Thanks again.

 

[Rob Giordano [MS MVP]]

David, they named it Quirks for a reason, if it were Normal...they probably
would have name it Normal



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

 

[LivetoTape]

I'm glad I finally found this thread!!!! I've been suffering the same
problems and no one at Microsoft could offer me a solution.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to ungroup navigation toolbars or any pre-fab
design elements. "HELP" doesn't have any instructions either.

I would appreciate your expertise in this area too!

Thanks.

 

[sjnoffsinger]

This fix worked perfectly! Thank you.

 

[DavidF]

Thanks for posting back. The feedback is appreciated.

DavidF

 

[NancySue2]

Hi:

Sorry to bother but this fix didn't work for me. I am using Publisher 2003,
IE8 and Filezilla to upload to our domain site. I just tried it and
still...no navigation bars or other background graphics are showing up on our
office's page.

 

[DavidF]

If you have ungrouped the navbar successfully you should be able to click on
it to select it and there should be no 'wizard wand' appear below the
navbar. You should be able to go to Arrange and the Ungroup option should be
grayed out. Then if you do a web page preview it should render in IE8. Do
you have success through this point?

If yes, be sure to delete your old files off the server and upload the new
ones.

If you still can't see the navbar or any of the images did you remember to
upload the 'index_files" folder along with the index.htm file?

Are you using a Master Page? In other words, did you put your navbar on the
Master page? If so, move it off.

Still no success, please post a link to your site.

DavidF