Upgrading from Publisher 2000 to 2007

[Stephen Nicholls]

I've just upgraded to Publisher 2007 from Publisher 2000 which has served me
brilliantly - but slowly.
Web sites that were 2MB in Publisher 2000 are now up to 8 MB. Why?
1. Many of the photo's I used have now INCREASED in size. Why?
2. Strange new files appear in the web site - including a 700 KB "MSO" file.
Why?
3. 23 Windows Media Skin Packages have appeared - which aren't recognised
by Windows Media Player. Why?
4. And, finally, in spite of ticking the box saying "Don't use PNG files"
Publisher 2007 has created them. Why?
Should I revert to the old Publisher 2000?!? Any comments would be welcome.

 

[Stephen Nicholls]

Here I am, answering myself! I have now read all the other members' queries
with IDENTICAL problems. So I guess the answer is to go back to Publisher
2000. What a shame that MS has to produce an "upgrade" that is really a
"downgrade". Some time ago I tried 2003 with the identical problems. MS
obviously don't take any notice of customer needs in this respect. Sad.

 

[Brucels]

Stephen,

There's no reason that you can't have both installed on one computer. I use
2003 for most desktop publishing, but I use 2000 for simple website creation.
I believe it has been suggested that 2000 be installed in a different folder,
to avoid conflicts.

Bruce

 

[DavidF]

I can answer some of your questions.

1. When you "Save as a Web page" in Publisher 2000, the html coding engine
would automatically resample and resize oversized and high resolution images
to 96 dpi. With Publisher 2007, you have a new html coding engine, which has
been tweaked a bit since Pub 2003, and a "Compress graphics" tool has been
added. Once you run the compression the inserted images will be resized and
resampled much as you saw in Pub 2000, and your overall file size will drop.
This tool has been improved since Pub 2003. Also the VML option was dropped
in Pub 2007, which greatly improved cross browser compatibility.

Reference: Compress graphics file sizes to create smaller Publisher Web
pages (2003):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA011266301033.aspx

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

2. I have to guess on this one, but the MSO file is probably a result of
importing the Pub 2000 file into Pub 2007, and bringing with it some of the
old code from Office 2000. Did you insert any Word 2000 text into your Pub
file? However, it is possible that is in the way your are producing the
file...do you "publish to the web" to produce your web files? I can't
reproduce your issue at this point.

3. The WMV files are usually a result of clip art conversion to HTML. They
aren't really media files as you understand them...a bit deceptive. The clip
art part of Publisher was changed as of Pub 2002 when Publisher was
"adopted" into the Office family. Not a good switch in my mind, but others
would disagree. If you use FireFox view your site, right click a page, and
choose to View Page Info, and then look at the media tab. You can scroll
down all the image on your site and find on of those wmv files and look at
it...I would imagine it will be a piece of clip art.

4. If you don't compress your images using the compress graphics tool, the
html coding engine will make multiple copies of your images in various
formats including PNG. Run the compress graphics tool and the PNG files
should go away.

Go back to Pub 2000? I still prefer Pub 2000, but there are advantages to
using 2007. You can't layer design objects in Pub 2000 without them being
combined and converted into gif files. Pub 2007 offers you more flexibility
in design. Pub 2000 produces cleaner, and simpler code and thus less weight.
There are many pros and cons both ways, but before you go back try the
suggestions above, and you might be happier. Also, you can run both versions
on your computer. If you reinstall Pub 2000, just do a custom install, and
install it in its own folder rather than the default. You don't want to
overwrite Pub 2007.

Hope this helps.

DavidF

 

[Stephen Nicholls]

Hello David - I have noticed your kind replies to many other folk who have
had problems. I've read all your comments: fully understood. My reaction is
- it may solve the problems, but it shouldn't be necessary to be so
complicated! All my pictures are compressed or small jpegs anyway.
When I run the design checker it could surely stop on pictures which are too
big, or whatever, and ask if I wanted them compressed or changed!?! One of
the web sites I'm in charge of is a simple ten page website: you may be
interested to see the comparison in various features between Publisher 2007
and the old Publisher 2000:

Pub 2000: Size as a website ready to upload 811KB
Pub 2007: 2.4 MB

Pub 2000 number of files ready to upload: 66
Pub 2007: 138

Pub 2000 3 largest files 41KB 45KB 119 KB [all GIFs]
Pub 2007: 178 KB 220KB 590KB

Fortunately when I installed Publisher 2007 I did it in a separate folder -
I still have good old Publisher 2000 on the computer and will keep to that. I
had just hoped that Publisher 2007 would have been a simple 'upgrade' rather
than such a complicated and apparently 'space inefficient' program.

Greetings from sunny Spain, David! Thanks again.

 

[DavidF]

Stephen,

I appreciate your comparisons. I did a similar sort of thing during the beta
testing for Pub 2007, and argued that the code generated by Pub 2000 was in
some ways superior to the code generated by Pub 2007. And as you have
demonstrated the overall file size is always larger in Pub 2007.

You are also correct that when you run the Design Checker on a Web
publication, MSFT could and probably should have it set to alert you to the
need to compress the graphics before publishing. I guess I am just glad that
we have the compression tool. It was not available in Pub 2002, and it took
a lot of persuasion by David Bartosik to get them to finally add it in a
service pack to Pub 2003. The version that came with 2007 is an improvement
over that one. Just be sure to run it before you Publish to the Web and you
should find significant changes in your over all file sizes.

So yes, when MSFT changed the html coding engine in version 2002 they took
about 4 steps back from Pub 2000 in my opinion, but have taken steps forward
with each of the successive versions. I continue to lobby for improvements,
but in the meantime I use Pub 2000 for most of my production work, and the
other versions primarily to work out solutions and workarounds for this
group. So you are preaching to the choir.

DavidF

Hello David - I have noticed your kind replies to many other folk who have
had problems. I've read all your comments: fully understood. My reaction
is
- it may solve the problems, but it shouldn't be necessary to be so
complicated! All my pictures are compressed or small jpegs anyway.
When I run the design checker it could surely stop on pictures which are
too
big, or whatever, and ask if I wanted them compressed or changed!?! One of
the web sites I'm in charge of is a simple ten page website: you may be
interested to see the comparison in various features between Publisher
2007
and the old Publisher 2000:

Pub 2000: Size as a website ready to upload 811KB
Pub 2007: 2.4 MB

Pub 2000 number of files ready to upload: 66
Pub 2007: 138

Pub 2000 3 largest files 41KB 45KB 119 KB [all GIFs]
Pub 2007: 178 KB 220KB 590KB

Fortunately when I installed Publisher 2007 I did it in a separate
folder -
I still have good old Publisher 2000 on the computer and will keep to
that. I
had just hoped that Publisher 2007 would have been a simple 'upgrade'
rather
than such a complicated and apparently 'space inefficient' program.

Greetings from sunny Spain, David! Thanks again.

I can answer some of your questions.

1. When you "Save as a Web page" in Publisher 2000, the html coding
engine
would automatically resample and resize oversized and high resolution
images
to 96 dpi. With Publisher 2007, you have a new html coding engine, which
has
been tweaked a bit since Pub 2003, and a "Compress graphics" tool has
been
added. Once you run the compression the inserted images will be resized
and
resampled much as you saw in Pub 2000, and your overall file size will
drop.
This tool has been improved since Pub 2003. Also the VML option was
dropped
in Pub 2007, which greatly improved cross browser compatibility.

Reference: Compress graphics file sizes to create smaller Publisher Web
pages (2003):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA011266301033.aspx

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

2. I have to guess on this one, but the MSO file is probably a result of
importing the Pub 2000 file into Pub 2007, and bringing with it some of
the
old code from Office 2000. Did you insert any Word 2000 text into your
Pub
file? However, it is possible that is in the way your are producing the
file...do you "publish to the web" to produce your web files? I can't
reproduce your issue at this point.

3. The WMV files are usually a result of clip art conversion to HTML.
They
aren't really media files as you understand them...a bit deceptive. The
clip
art part of Publisher was changed as of Pub 2002 when Publisher was
"adopted" into the Office family. Not a good switch in my mind, but
others
would disagree. If you use FireFox view your site, right click a page,
and
choose to View Page Info, and then look at the media tab. You can scroll
down all the image on your site and find on of those wmv files and look
at
it...I would imagine it will be a piece of clip art.

4. If you don't compress your images using the compress graphics tool,
the
html coding engine will make multiple copies of your images in various
formats including PNG. Run the compress graphics tool and the PNG files
should go away.

Go back to Pub 2000? I still prefer Pub 2000, but there are advantages to
using 2007. You can't layer design objects in Pub 2000 without them being
combined and converted into gif files. Pub 2007 offers you more
flexibility
in design. Pub 2000 produces cleaner, and simpler code and thus less
weight.
There are many pros and cons both ways, but before you go back try the
suggestions above, and you might be happier. Also, you can run both
versions
on your computer. If you reinstall Pub 2000, just do a custom install,
and
install it in its own folder rather than the default. You don't want to
overwrite Pub 2007.

Hope this helps.

DavidF