Publishing all pages in Publisher 2003

[AlexD]

Having started this as a mini project a few weeks ago it has taken over my
life!! I designed a fairly basic 6 page website for my pub
www.theaxeandcompass.co.uk

I like many people on these forums appear to have done everything in the
right order. I have published the total site once but after I needed to make
some amends have not been able to do it again since. Home page not a problem.
Have played with colour and text and seen the changes soon after I have made
them on the home page

I have got myself into a bit of a pickle with all the sub folders and web
pages i have created, but I sort of understand that index.htm is my home page
and index_files are where my other 5 sub pages are. I have checked the
preview design and last sections of web address and these match the names I
have given the pages and the pages when I click the navigation links

Up until right now the home page was loading fine and the other pages just
coming up blank, but now the pictures on the home page are not loading

I have read many of the threads and been to many of the links and home pages
many times. I tried renaming the folders to old and reloading the home page
again and yes it created another fresh index_files folder with all the web
pages in but they are not showing when I go onto the website

I'm not stupd! but I'm not computer literate so if its been said in one of
the threads I cant see it and i still dont get it!

Any help much appreciated

Alex

 

[DavidF]

Hi Alex,

The fact that you can click on
http://www.theaxeandcompass.co.uk/index_files/aboutus.htm and you get a
blank page in the browser suggests that the aboutus.htm file is there, but
there is nothing on the page...the file is blank. If the file was not there,
you would get a 404 error. Why is the page file blank? I don't know what you
did...maybe it was renaming files, maybe you uploaded the files to wrong
directory??? Hard to say, and probably unimportant at this point.

Open your Publisher file and go to your aboutus page. Go to Tools > Web Page
Options. On that dialog and under Publish to the Web do you have "aboutus"
typed in the "File name" field? Just checking to see if you have properly
named each page...each file.

Then either log on to your host control panel and use the file manager to
delete your index.htm file(s) and the entire index_files folder, or folders,
or log on using ftp and do the same. Make sure you delete all your Publisher
html files, but be careful to not delete any host files. By renaming and
changing the files on the host it is hard to say what additional Publisher
html files you will find. Just clean up your host directory. Then open your
Publisher file, Publish to the Web and produce and upload a new index.htm
file and a new index_files folder. Make sure you are uploading all your html
files to the correct place in the host directory. Some hosts have a
public_html folder or some other name. Review the directions from your host
to determine exactly where or in what folder you should be uploading your
html files. Given that we can see the index.htm file, you are probably
uploading to the correct directory, but once again, checking this detail is
a good idea.

Try cleaning up your host of old files, and uploading new, and if that
doesn't work, post back. Actually let us know either way please.

DavidF

 

[AlexD]

Thanks David

Have checked all the file names and they are all correct

I have tried to tidy up the folders that shouldnt be there and I cant delete
these in Publisher. When I go to my FTP control page via network places there
are not as many folders there - I have deleted these again in the hope it
would clear them off the ftp list in Publisher - nothing, they are all still
there. As I said before I tried renaming the index_files to old and resaving
and they reappeared with the correct web files in - one for each of the other
6 pages

As you will see I have added a 7th page and changed the colour slightly so I
know that republishing the home page works, but still the other pages do not
appear. When I go into index_files it has even created the web page for the
new page - whatson

So to clarify I have index.htm under the web folder in the axe ftp location
in publisher and I have each of the other six pages all again .htm in the
index_files folder which sits in the same web folder

When I type ftp://www.theaxeandcompass.co.uk/ into the browser and i choose
the web option should I expect to see my website there?

Not sure where to turn next!

Just to add to the list of problems the homepage is not loading all the
pictures now!!

Any further help much appreciated


Thanks


Alex

 

[DavidF]

At this point, I suspect that you just aren't uploading the index_files
folder entirely, because some of your images are indeed on the server:
http://www.theaxeandcompass.co.uk/index_files/image4451.jpg and others
aren't:
http://www.theaxeandcompass.co.uk/index_files/image3141.jpg . It is possible
that you are either not waiting for all the files to upload, or you are
experiencing a "time out" from the server because it is taking too long to
upload all the files. It may be both, as the images that you are uploading
are way too large and need to be compressed.

When you insert large image files into your Publisher doc, and don't
compress them, Publisher makes at least two copies of the image...one for IE
and one for other browsers. Here is one that is produced for FF:
http://www.theaxeandcompass.co.uk/index_files/image15481.jpg It is about 11
kb. And here is the image that you inserted:
http://www.theaxeandcompass.co.uk/index_files/image1548.jpg and tries to
load in IE. It is 2.4 MB! That means that one image would take over 10
minutes to load for a person that has a dial-up connection....or more than
10 minutes for you to upload if you are using a dial-up connection.

Compress your images as per: Reference: Compress graphics file sizes to
create smaller Publisher Web pages:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA011266301033.aspx

Then Publish to the Web again, and upload again. Be sure to wait until all
the files are uploaded.

Eventually I would also suggest that you consider downloading and installing
the free FTP client FileZilla:
http://filezilla-project.org/ It is likely to be easier for you to see the
files on your server and to manage your site. But for now, just compress the
graphics and upload the new index.htm file and the new index_files folder.
Chances are the way you are uploading will work if you get the files sizes
down.

DavidF

 

[AlexD]

David

This had occured to me, but because the site had loaded once before with all
the pictures etc I thought its not that!!

I had to download Office Pack1 to get the compress button on the picture
toolbar, but once loaded I compressed the whole document and yes you guessed
it bingo bango the site now loads!!

Thanks for all your help much appreciated

Now I can start to add a few tricks to the site so will probably be in touch
again. Just kidding updating only for now, but I feel a career in web design
may not be far away.

Have a great week


Regards


Alex

 

[DavidF]

Alex,

Thanks for posting back, and congrats!

If you want to improve your site be careful about adding "tricks". Just
because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Remember to keep it
simple, and unless it makes the page load faster, makes the page easier to
read, makes the site easier to navigate, then you should think twice about
adding the "trick". A lot of bells and whistles can ruin a good site.
Reference: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/

One thing you can do to improve your site is to work on getting it more
cross browser compatible. If you can get your site to look good and work
correctly in both IE and FireFox then you will have most browsers covered.
So download and install FF to test your site with: FireFox (5.7 MB):
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ You will find that on your home page
you have filled the text box with your contact information, and a link to
email you. However, when you fill a text box with color, the hyperlink will
work in IE, but is killed in FF. It is converted to an image...try selecting
text in contact text box and you will see it has been converted. The
workaround is to either remove the fill, or to create a new empty text box
of the same size, fill it with the color, and put it on top of the
non-filled text box, and then send it to the back. It will give you the same
effect, but won't kill the hyperlink.

Also, for some reason the bottom navbar that Publisher produces with its
wizard is converted to an image much as the filled text box, and the links
are killed. So, if you want the bottom navbar to work in FF, select it in
your Pub file, Arrange and Ungroup. This will ungroup it from the navbar
wizard and the links will work in FF. Unfortunately it also means the bottom
navbar won't be updated if you add a page and to the vertical navbar, so
wait to do this when you have your site pretty much built. If need be you
can rebuild the navbar later though.

Good luck.

DavidF