Why does my Publisher website work w/IE but not Firefox & Netscape

[JoAnn Paules [MSFT MVP]]

Nature of the beast. You are using a Microsoft desktop publishing program to
create a website. If multi-browser functionality is important, then you
really need to be looking at using a program made to create website - as in
FrontPage.

 

[DavidF]

While you are probably correct that FrontPage might offer better cross
browser support and be a better choice for building a sophisticated website,
you might read the following article and excerpt:

http://www.davidbartosik.com/2005/05/are-you-cross-browser-compatible-by.htm

"Be weary of Microsoft's FrontPage. While Microsoft makes some of the
world's most powerful and end user friendly applications in my opinion,
FrontPage has a tendency to do things IE's way. What I mean when I say this
is that FrontPage will overload a web page with a lot of overhead that is
either out of place or incorrect."

Personally, I am hoping that the next version of Publisher will offer better
cross browser support than Pub 2003, and perhaps get back to the KISS
philosophy for producing more basic and faster loading websites. I suspect
that's what many if not most Publisher users want.

DavidF

 

[JoAnn Paules [MSFT MVP]]

And I hold to my personal motto - Use the right tool to do the job. ;-)

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

 

[Mary Sauer]

If Publisher is all you have, then it is the right tool for that user. FrontPage is
$170 or $88 for the upgrade on Amazon. Of course some programs are better than others
for accomplishing a task, but this is a Publisher forum.

--
Mary Sauer MSFT MVP
http://office.microsoft.com/

And I hold to my personal motto - Use the right tool to do the job. ;-)

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

While you are probably correct that FrontPage might offer better cross
browser support and be a better choice for building a sophisticated website,
you might read the following article and excerpt:

http://www.davidbartosik.com/2005/05/are-you-cross-browser-compatible-by.htm

"Be weary of Microsoft's FrontPage. While Microsoft makes some of the
world's most powerful and end user friendly applications in my opinion,
FrontPage has a tendency to do things IE's way. What I mean when I say this
is that FrontPage will overload a web page with a lot of overhead that is
either out of place or incorrect."

Personally, I am hoping that the next version of Publisher will offer better
cross browser support than Pub 2003, and perhaps get back to the KISS
philosophy for producing more basic and faster loading websites. I suspect
that's what many if not most Publisher users want.

DavidF

 

[NanVan]

"Use the right tool to do the job."

Okay, fine. So why include the option to publish to the web, if the product
isn't capable of handling it with the same (high?) quality. - Oh, guess what,
I already know the answer...TO SELL MORE SOFTWARE! MS tricks you into
believing that Publisher (the software I already own, paid for and spent time
learning) works as a web publishing software, but once you get involved
(hours and hours, days and days) you start to find the glitches that
frustrate you sooooo much that you begin to look for answers. Of course, if
you can only think “MS†then you'll automatically "upgrade" to FrontPage.
However, this technique can backfire. The more knowledge one gets, the more
likely one will become disenchanted with MS Software and look elsewhere. Like
me. This is why I don’t use the IE browser anymore. If you can’t share with
others in the playground, then you should go into time out!

PS – the “tech†person (from India, named “Jim†– yeah, right!) advised me
to download service pack 2, which I did and which, of course had no effect
whatsoever. The other problems I’m dealing with are how Publisher decides to
re-design my text so that it isn’t WYSIWYG anymore. Text lines appear over
photos, large spaces occur between text frames, etc. Who’s going to answer
THAT one?

And I hold to my personal motto - Use the right tool to do the job. ;-)

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

While you are probably correct that FrontPage might offer better cross
browser support and be a better choice for building a sophisticated
website,
you might read the following article and excerpt:

http://www.davidbartosik.com/2005/05/are-you-cross-browser-compatible-by.htm

"Be weary of Microsoft's FrontPage. While Microsoft makes some of the
world's most powerful and end user friendly applications in my opinion,
FrontPage has a tendency to do things IE's way. What I mean when I say
this
is that FrontPage will overload a web page with a lot of overhead that is
either out of place or incorrect."

Personally, I am hoping that the next version of Publisher will offer
better
cross browser support than Pub 2003, and perhaps get back to the KISS
philosophy for producing more basic and faster loading websites. I suspect
that's what many if not most Publisher users want.

DavidF

 

[DavidF]

Hi NanVan,

I understand your frustration and wish the MS had not messed up the cross
browser support when they improved Pub 2003. They did make some good
changes, but the lack of cross browser support and several other things have
kept me with Pub 2000, which doesn't have these issues. With a little luck
they will address these issues in the next release. But lets deal with what
we can control...

The best way to help would be if you posted the URL of the problem pages for
review, but I will hazard a few guesses. It probably needs not be said, but
if you are using something other than IE, then you are not going to get your
pages to load correctly. Assuming that you are 'reluctantly' testing now in
IE, then one possible explanation for one of your issues is that Publisher
web pages do not support word wrap as it does in a print document. If you
are trying to wrap text around a picture, you will need to redesign you
page. Also note that if you overlap any page elements you will convert those
to one big gif file.

Please submit your URL and we will see if we can help if these ideas don't
get you there. Also, I would recommend you spend some time reading David
Bartosik's material. He is the resident expert on using Publisher to produce
a website. Here are a few links:

See the FAQ - http://www.publishermvps.com/Default.aspx?tabid=30

http://www.publishermvps.com/WebDesign/Version2003/tabid/33/Default.aspx

DavidF

"Use the right tool to do the job."

Okay, fine. So why include the option to publish to the web, if the product
isn't capable of handling it with the same (high?) quality. - Oh, guess what,
I already know the answer...TO SELL MORE SOFTWARE! MS tricks you into
believing that Publisher (the software I already own, paid for and spent time
learning) works as a web publishing software, but once you get involved
(hours and hours, days and days) you start to find the glitches that
frustrate you sooooo much that you begin to look for answers. Of course, if
you can only think "MS" then you'll automatically "upgrade" to FrontPage.
However, this technique can backfire. The more knowledge one gets, the more
likely one will become disenchanted with MS Software and look elsewhere. Like
me. This is why I don't use the IE browser anymore. If you can't share with
others in the playground, then you should go into time out!

PS - the "tech" person (from India, named "Jim" - yeah, right!) advised me
to download service pack 2, which I did and which, of course had no effect
whatsoever. The other problems I'm dealing with are how Publisher decides to
re-design my text so that it isn't WYSIWYG anymore. Text lines appear over
photos, large spaces occur between text frames, etc. Who's going to answer
THAT one?

And I hold to my personal motto - Use the right tool to do the job. ;-)

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

While you are probably correct that FrontPage might offer better cross
browser support and be a better choice for building a sophisticated
website,
you might read the following article and excerpt:

http://www.davidbartosik.com/2005/05/are-you-cross-browser-compatible-by.htm

"Be weary of Microsoft's FrontPage. While Microsoft makes some of the
world's most powerful and end user friendly applications in my opinion,
FrontPage has a tendency to do things IE's way. What I mean when I say
this
is that FrontPage will overload a web page with a lot of overhead that is
either out of place or incorrect."

Personally, I am hoping that the next version of Publisher will offer
better
cross browser support than Pub 2003, and perhaps get back to the KISS
philosophy for producing more basic and faster loading websites. I suspect
that's what many if not most Publisher users want.

DavidF

Nature of the beast. You are using a Microsoft desktop publishing program
to
create a website. If multi-browser functionality is important, then you
really need to be looking at using a program made to create website - as
in
FrontPage.

 

[NanVan]

DavidF,

My website is "VanitiesSpa.com"

I created the site using Publisher just the way I do for newsletters, etc. I
just "ungrouped" my frames to see if that was the prob. - it wasn't. I still
can't get Firefox (my preferred browser) to read any of my other pages. The
links to the "spa services", etc. seem "frozen".

Keep in mind that I am extreemly new at this - learning as I go. I'm quite
ready to try a different design program and skip MS altogether. Why can't
such a huge company, with genius' at the helm make simple to use products
that actually work properly??? It shouldn't be this hard. I spend WAAAYYY too
much time trying to fix MS problems rather than enjoying my efforts -
nevermind running my own company! Who has time to grow their business when
their week is tied up with fixing MS?!?!?!

So, that's my RANT.

Thanks for the help!

 

[DavidF]

I have good news and bad news. Your home page will load in Firefox, but the
links do not work and the entire page is much larger, including the text
size, than in IE. Sorry, but Publisher 2003 code just simply does not play
well with Firefox.

There is also good and bad news with IE. All the links work just fine.
Spacing issues appear to be because you are overlapping text boxes with word
art and images on occasion. It also appeared that you inserted one image
into a text box...a no no. Perhaps run the Design Checker to see the
different instances of when you overlap elements, and under Tools (in Pub
2000) select the 'Snap To' options. This really helps when you are trying to
arrange elements on your page.

Generally, your site looks pretty good in IE. However, you are one of the
very special users that David Bartosik will want to talk with. Your site
crashes IE when I switch pages. It is intermittent, but on at least 4
occasions, it crashed IE and wanted to send an error message to Microsoft.
This bug has been reported in this forum only a few times, and David and the
MS team have been working to figure out what causes it. Now, don't you feel
special?

As to your rant, there is no perfect tool...no perfect software. As I
pointed out in the article I referenced in this thread, even FrontPage has
its issues and critics. I personally hate flash...or at least what
webmasters do with it much of the time. Also, building a website is a whole
different world than desktop publishing. I too thought that since I knew how
to use Publisher pretty well that it should be no problem building a
website...silly me. There was so much to learn, and so many design
work-arounds, and trial and terror, and I still consider myself almost
ignorant when it comes to website development and theory.

However, I enjoy learning and finding out what I can and cannot do with any
particular program, and don't expect perfection, or ease of use from any
computer or application. So you can rant and rave about MS and having to put
some time and energy into it, or do what I probably should have done, and
that's hire someone that knows what they are doing, and concentrate on
managing your business. Your site is simple enough that with a little
tweaking you should be able to produce it with Publisher, but you gotta
chill a bit (maybe check into your own spa ;-). Even if you switch programs,
you will find issues with whatever you switch too. Ok...enough of my 'rant'.
Run the design checker, read the articles I referenced, take a deep breath
and try again. You are almost there...

DavidF

 

[DavidF]

NanVan,

If you want to make your site more cross browser friendly, then you might
consider coding your own textual menu instead of using the Pub nav bar. I
believe that the textual menu would work in Firefox. Here is a link to an
article that describes the process:

http://www.publishermvps.com/Default.aspx?tabid=110

The code from this page can be modified to create a vertical menu by
replacing the pipe symbol with <br>

Be sure to back up your original pub doc before you try this. You can
probably test the results by doing a web page preview. Also, you might
create a hand made vertical nav bar using a text box, small images, or
wordart etc. with hyperlinking to your other pages added by hand. And if you
end up using a textual menu, there is code you can add through the insert
HTML code fragment that would give you a mouse over effect and/or remove the
standard underline of each hyperlinked word. Refer to the FAQ:

http://www.publishermvps.com/WebDesign/FAQ/tabid/30/Default.aspx

DavidF

 

[analog]

I don't blame the guy for being pissed off one little bit. I am stranded in
Publisher 2000, and I am pretty pissed off at M$ too. What you did not tell the
poor fellow was that he can't even migrate into FrontPage easily, another
friggin' member of the Office family. Unless M$ is going to fix the next
release of Publisher, they are morally, and perhaps legally obligated to at
least provide a software tool to ease the transition from Publisher to
FrontPage. Why in G-d's name would they make Publisher html incompatible with
other browsers after the experience they had with that anti-trust case?

 

[analog]

Oops, sorry Nancy, I wasn't paying attention. You are not a guy at all... BTW,
I am also in Kentucky, but a couple of hours west of you near Owensboro.

 

[Claudine]

David, Please send me the like with for cross-browser-compatibility.

I tried to look at it and I was unable to.

I am having the same issue with compatibility.

Some links work on IE but not FF. Getting FP is another expense I am
prepared for at this time.

www.intentionbeadz.com

Thanks again David.

In Celestial Flow,

 

[Mike Koewler]

Claudine,

Keep in mind FP is being replaced by Expressions.

Not to hijack a MS NG, but I seriously suggest that you take a look at
Serif WebPlus, especially if you like the idea of a program that is very
similar to Pub but has way more power under its hood. FWIW, you can
download a free copy of an older version, wait for a couple of weeks and
upgrade to the very latest version for $40. It is 100 percent cross
compatible with every Windows based browser.

Mike

 

[DavidF]

Are You Cross Browser Compatible? by Matt Benya :
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/pages/80825.aspx

You can find all of David Bartosik's content here. Just type in a key word
in the upper right corner and search the archives.

Part of your problem is you are framing your site, and that alone will mess
things up. Furthermore, if you frame the site the webbots won't find it and
the browsers won't index it. Framing in general is not a good idea.

The first thing you can try to at least activate the links in FF, is to get
rid of the border. Try that and see if that helps. Then test the links to
see if they will actually take you where you want to go. The framing may
create a problem.

If you buy new software from MSFT make it Web Expression which has replaced
FrontPage.

DavidF

 

[Claudine]

If I am framing, I don't know how I did it. I would have been a total mistake.

I have to check what framing is later. I keep you posted.