Web pages created with Publisher may appear differently when you view them
using different Web browsers. When you view a Web page with Microsoft
Internet Explorer, for example, it may appear differently than if you view
it with Netscape Navigator or Mosaic.
Here are some of the things which are likely to appear differently with
different browsers:
- Spacing between lines of text
- Text wrap and text alignment
- Placement of pictures
- Fonts, text size, and text color
- The background color of text frames
This issue actually affects all Web pages, not just those created with
Publisher. However, because Publisher supports some very complicated
layouts, the differences may be more obvious.
When you create a Web page, what you really get is a text-only document
that contains instructions for a Web browser to use to re-create a richly
formatted page. To keep these files as small as possible, the instructions
are generic. Different Web browsers interpret these instructions slightly
differently. For example, a Web page may instruct a Web browser to align
some text in a table with the top of its cell, but the exact distance
between the top of the table cell and the top of the text is left up to the
Web browser.
In addition, not every Web browser understands the same set of
instructions. Software companies frequently expand the features of their
browsers, then other companies add the same features later. If a Web
browser doesn't understand an instruction, it typically ignores it.
Finally, a Web page can contain instructions about what fonts the Web
browser should use, but it doesn't contain the fonts themselves.For
example, if you create a Web page that uses some text in the Rockwell
Condensed font, that text will appear differently on a computer that does
not have Rockwell Condensed installed.
These issues are not specific to Publisher; they are issues that occur with
all Web publishing tools and browsers.
If you don't know which Web browser your audience will be using, it is a
good idea to have several different browsers installed at the same time.
That way you can get several different opinions about how your Web page
should look before you actually post it to the World Wide Web.
If you don't want to have several Web browsers on one computer, you can
have Publisher post your Web Site to a floppy disk. You can then take the
floppy disk to several different computers that have different Web browsers
installed and view the Web Site on the floppy disk under each browser.
To view a Web Site from a floppy disk using Internet Explorer:
- Put the disk in the A: or B: drive.
- Start Internet Explorer.
- On the File menu, click Open.
- In the Open dialog box, click Browse.
- Change to the A: or B: drive.
- Click the file called Index.html, Index.htm, Default.html, or
Default.htm.
You should be able to follow a similar set of steps for other Web
browsers.