Publishing MS Publisher 2003 HTM won't view properly with IE6

[Donna]

I have created an 11 page website using MS Publisher 2003. I have loaded on
to MS SharePoint 2007 (our local intranet), where it views perfectly for me.
(I have IE 7) Any of the other users in the organization using IE6 are only
able to view the "home" page and none of the subsequent pages. Any
suggestions on how I can fix this bug?

 

[DavidF]

Are you sure they are running IE6 and not IE8? I have never heard of anyone
having problems with IE6 if the site works well in IE7. If IE8, then if the
navbar was built by the Publisher navbar wizard, you will need to ungroup it
in order for IE8 to render it correctly.

Reference: Navigation bars and other content is missing from Publisher HTML
output in IE8: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969705

If that is not the case, then post back and explain in more detail. Can the
other users see the navbar on the home page? Are the links active, or dead?
Did you build the navbars manually, and if so explain how you did it?
Explain what you mean when you say they cannot view the other pages...

DavidF

 

[Donna]

That is interesting what you wrote about IE8. Since IE8 is not supported by
my IT, I have not been focusing on it, but now that you mention it, any users
viewing this page with IE are not able to see the navigational bars at the
top of the page. I will try the solution you gave me and see if it helps.

As for IE6, yes, I am certain that is the version. I can't wrap my head
around it. IE7 works perfectly. For IE6, the only page they can view is the
"home" page. They can see the links to all of the sub pages but when they
click, they end up with a blank white page. My only solution I can think of
is to create each page separately as it's own htm, but the re-work to this is
considerable. It would mean going into each navigational bar and putting in
URL's vs. the easy way MS Publisher links them all together now as one
document prior to publishing.

The only other thing I can think might be affecting it is the fact that this
is being loaded on to MS SharePoint as a web part page. All of our intranet
is on SharePoint.

 

[DavidF]

Hi Donna,

Ok, you have at least eliminated some of the possible reasons.

Given that the navbar links are 'hot' and do take the user to a blank page,
then that seems to be where we need to concentrate. I know squat about MS
SharePoint, but it does sound like the issue you are experiencing is
related.

Publisher 2003 can produce the html output in two ways. If you go to Tools >
Options > Web tab you will see the option of 'Organize supporting files in a
folder'. When you use this option Publisher will produce an 'index.htm' file
(your home page) and an 'index_files' folder which contains all the
supporting graphics and all the other .htm file, or pages of the site. The
absolute path to those other pages is:
http://yourdomain.com/index_files/Page###.htm . Assuming that you are using
this option as it is the default in Pub 2003, you might try unchecking that
option. Now when you produce your web files all the files will be 'loose'
and the link path to the other pages will be written as such:
http://yourdomain.com//index_Page###.htm . Note that the last part of this
link has an underscore "index_Page###.htm . You can 'Publish to the Web' and
direct your html files to your local computer to view and study those files
if you want. Note that while I have given you the absolute paths to the
sub-pages, the Publisher navbar wizard writes relative links to those pages.
If the possible solutions I am going to propose in this message don't work,
then the next step is to change the links to absolute links...but consider
the following first.

Now, this is a total guess, but perhaps SharePoint does not support the
subfolder that you are currently using, so try producing your files without
the 'organizing' subfolder and uploading them.

While you have the Options dialog open be sure to uncheck the option of
'Rely on VML...'. In fact, if you perchance have been producing your files
with that option checked, you might try publishing with it unchecked and
using the 'organizing' folder first. I know that if the 'Rely on VML...'
option is checked and a Pub 2003 web is uploaded to a normal host, and
viewed with FireFox that the secondary pages will not render correctly. That
might be what is happening in SharePoint.

And finally, when you produce your web files, go to File > Publish to the
Web. Do not do File > Save as a Web Page. The former produces 'filtered'
code and the later produces 'rich' code. Explaining the difference between
the two is not necessary to test for a solution, but I will explain it if
you are interested.

Try these things and hopefully one of them will lead to a solution. Please
post back with your results.

DavidF

 

[Donna]

I think you may be on to something with regards to the subfolders. I should
have mentioned this before but did not make the connection. When I upload
all of these files to SharePoint, I put the main htm at one level and then
create a folder with the same name Publisher creates containing all of the
pictures and sub pages. A weird glitch is, when I create this folder,
SharePoint, for reasons unknown, puts a _ (underscore) character at the end
of the folder name. As a work around, I have been going into the main htm
file and opening in notepad. From there, I manually put the _ everywhere
this subfolder name is listed. I can't believe I never thought of this
before (mainly because this work around seems to work in IE7) but maybe this
is the source of all of my problems. I am going to test your solution right
now by not using this subfolder and see what kind of results it yields. I
will definitely post a reply with my findings.

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I've been going nuts trying to figure
out where I went wrong! I think this may just fix the problem.

 

[DavidF]

Donna,

You might just try leaving the option to use the 'organizing' folder
checked, and uploading the 'index_files' folder intact and as it is produced
from Publisher to the same level in the directory as the 'index.htm' file.
It would be a lot tidier.

DavidF

 

[Donna]

It looks like SharePoint is causing the problem. I did the two things you
suggested, taking away the folder option and having all the files in one
level as well as publishing to the web vs. save as htm. (I checked and the
version I am using did not have that box checked "organize on VML...) I
uploaded to SharePoint and they work great on their own. Problem is, the
link I am trying to attach them to is a SharePoint home page and what I was
trying to do was link that page in as a Page Web Part. This is where it all
seems to be breaking down and people are not able to view the sub pages. So
I guess I am back to the drawing board. I may end up having to create them
as separate files/pages and link to on another, which I'm not crazy about.
It will be a lot of effort. I am out of options at this point. One would
think they would link well together since they are both Microsoft products,
but apparently not.

 

[DavidF]

Ok, then here is something else you might try. I am still assuming that you
used the Pub navbar wizard to build the navbar. I propose that you replace
the standard relative links with absolute links.

First of all make a backup copy of your Pub file in case you want to go back
to the original file. Now in the working copy go to the second page of the
publication. Go to Tools > Web Page Options. In this dialog under 'Publish
to the Web' you will find the 'File name' field. This is where you can
custom name each *.htm file, or each page of your web. Assuming that you
have not previously given any pages a custom file name, enter 'Page002.htm'
for the second page and ok out. Go to the third page of the publication and
name that one 'Page003.htm'. Work through your entire publication giving
each page a custom file name. Do not give the first page a custom name as
you will ultimately use index.htm as a default. You do have the option of
using something like 'Contact.htm' or something more descriptive for each
page if you want. The main reason for these custom .htm file names is that
you will want to know what each page ..htm file name is in the next step. If
you don't give each page a custom .htm file name, when you Publish to the
Web, Publisher arbitrarily chooses a number, and that makes it harder to
write an absolute link to each page.

Now that you have give each page a custom file name, go to the first page
and click/select the navbar. Go to Format > Navigation Bar Properties. This
is where you are going to change the relative links on the navbar buttons to
absolute links. Select the second link, or Page002 > Modify Link. In the
Modify link dialog notice that you have 'Place in this document' selected in
the left column. This writes a relative link to a page. So, to change that
to an absolute link select instead 'Existing file or web page'. Now here is
the part you will have to figure out yourself. You need to write a link or
the path to the 'Page002.htm' file where it will be on your server. Figure
this out in advance, and write it in Notepad or something so that you can
just copy and paste it. The link will be something like I said before. If
you are using the supporting folder option:
http://yourdomain.com/index_files/Page001.htm . If you aren't using the
supporting folder: http://yourdomain.com/index_Page002.htm . Now if you have
a subfolder on your host where you are putting all these files, then include
that in the path, such as http://yourdomain.com/myfolder/index_Page###.htm .
I hope I am being clear...you want to write a path to where ever you store
the files, but I don't know your directory structure, so can't give you the
exact path.

After you finish editing the link to the second page, go to the third page
and change that link to the full path to the file, etc. This will update the
links to the whole site when you are finished. Publish and upload those new
files and see if they will work.

Good luck.

DavidF

 

[DavidF]

As I thought about this and read this reply again today, I realize that what
I am describing is exactly what you didn't want to do. I also am not
convinced that it will make any difference. There is something about
SharePoint that is creating this problem, but I don't understand SharePoint
and thus am coming up short in trying to help you.

Perhaps you should talk with your IT people about this. They should
understand how the SharePoint site directory is organized and why this is
happening. You should be able to just upload the index.htm file and the
index_files folder and make it work...

Sorry. Guess I some learning to do about SharePoint...

DavidF

 

[Eric James]

Please don't regard Sharepoint as a priority for our sake though, David.
HTML, CSS, W3C Standards, Validation, Dynamic HTML, Accessibility,
Javascript, Expression Web Designer, Dreamweaver and even Publisher should
all be much higher on your list.
In any case, the problems as described probably aren't so much to do with
Sharepoint as "web parts" - you probably won't know what they are but it's a
framework closely linked to Microsoft's .Net Framework.... the probability
of making Publisher work in any useful way in that environment must be close
to zero.
(Sorry Donna. You should be able to link in your pages effectively as a
separate stand-alone entity on your Sharepoint server though, but using a
more appropriate tool like Expression Web Designer to make your pages would
make things much easier in the long run.)

 

[Donna]

IT Worked!!! Brilliant!

Thanks sooo much!!!!

As I thought about this and read this reply again today, I realize that what
I am describing is exactly what you didn't want to do. I also am not
convinced that it will make any difference. There is something about
SharePoint that is creating this problem, but I don't understand SharePoint
and thus am coming up short in trying to help you.

Perhaps you should talk with your IT people about this. They should
understand how the SharePoint site directory is organized and why this is
happening. You should be able to just upload the index.htm file and the
index_files folder and make it work...

Sorry. Guess I some learning to do about SharePoint...

DavidF

 

[Donna]

I think you misunderstand what I was trying to accomplish. SharePoint is the
online collaboration tool my company is using. What I was trying to
accomplish was to insert a small website into a part of of one of the
SharePoint pages that looks, acts and feels like a website. It is a
quarterly update that is designed to depart from the standard SharePoint
format. This website was not meant to replace the existing structure of
our online intranet.

 

[Donna]

Actually, this was great advice. What I thought I would have to do was
create separate publications for each page and then link them to one another,
which would have been a nightmare. Instead, I followed your directions,
created absolute links to each page and it worked like a charm.

I consider myself to be a power user of SharePoint, but even this stumped me!

Thanks again for all your help! I can now proceed with other work and check
this off my "to do" list!

 

[DavidF]

Thanks for posting back. It is good to hear that it worked out. I was
getting to the place where I was up a creek without any more solutions.

If you do happen to check back and get this message, would you mind sharing
a few general guidelines, tips or methods of how a person could incorporate
a Publisher web into SharePoint? This question has come up a couple times
before and I just didn't know how to help or advise people. Anything you
could offer would be appreciated including links or some of your own words.
Thanks.

DavidF

 

[Donna]

There are 2 main ways you can incorporate a Microsoft Publisher web page into
SharePoint. The first is to load the page, as is, into a document library
and then publish the link to the main index.htm file so people can access it.
The second is to load the web page on to the main SharePoint front page as a
page viewer web part.

Step 1 – following DavidF’s steps in previous post, create web page(s) in MS
Publisher without using the folder method, giving each page a unique name and
linking the pages together in the navbar using absolute links.

Step 2 – upload the index.htm and all files “published to the web†into
SharePoint. The best way to do this is in a document library. Since this
library will contain many files to support the main page, don’t publish this
document library to the quick launch bar.

Step 3 – publish the link to the index.htm file somewhere on your SharePoint
page. This can be done by publishing it in the quick launch bar (by clicking
Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Navigation and then scrolling down to the
navigation window and adding a link under “Current Navigation†It can also
be done by simply adding the URL of the index.htm file to a links library
published on the front page.

Or…

Step 3 – publish the page to the main SharePoint front page using a page
viewer web part. Click Site Actions -> Edit Page. Click Add Web Part,
scroll down to miscellaneous and click on page viewer web part. Click add.
Follow directions to open the web part bar on the right. Insert the URL of
the index.htm file (to get the URL, navigate to the document library where
the file exists, right click on it, click properties and copy the URL) Click
on appearance to set the length and width of the web part. Here is where you
can really play around with the look and feel of it.

One other cool thing in keeping with the secondary publishing option are
some ways to make the SharePoint site look and feel more like a true “web
page†Here is a link to a great blog that gives a tutorial on how to create
your own web parts that hide parts of the SharePoint site, such as
breadcrumbs, quick launch bar, etc.
(http://www.mindsharpblogs.com/todd/archive/2005/10/25/801.aspx) This is not
really functional for most SharePoint sites, but in some, it can really
improve the look and feel. For the particular web pages I created, it is a
quarterly update that users come to automatically when they go on to the
intranet. It has a nice, clean and simple look to give users updates, news,
etc and also has links that pop out to the rest of the SharePoint sites for
day to day activity.

 

[Eric James]

No problem Donna - as I intimated, you have obviously succeeded in making
your pages work on your Sharepoint server as a stand-alone entity.
There is a potential for confusion when talking about "web parts" - these
are a totally different kind of entity supported by Sharepoint but as far as
I know can only be built using Visual Studio.

 

[DavidF]

Donna,

This is perfect! Exactly what I was hoping for. I will save your post and
use it when others ask about SharePoint.

Thank you for taking the time to write up such a good description.

DavidF