Saving Word 2003 document as web page still poor!

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Mike Varley - 10 Dec 2003 15:20 GMT

Hi

We're now evaluating Word 2003 and had hoped that the 'save as web page'
feature would work this time. Unfortunately it would appear that it does
not. When saving our regular 'bulletin' document as a web page Word *still*
manages to cock up all the formatting. Why? Will this ever be fixed?

Cheers

Mike

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Bob Buckland ?:-\) - 10 Dec 2003 15:38 GMT

Hi Mike,

It's not clear from your message in what way you're
finding the results of the page creation 'poor'.

Word's web page creation is targeted at folks who need
a web version of their document with no learning curve
other than to use File=>Save As and it retains all of
the information needed to roundtrip that web document
back into a .DOC file (including parts that a browser
can not display). It is not generally
focused on folks who understand or edit the underlying
source code. It's sister program, MS Office Frontpage
http://microsoft.com/frontpage is for more advanced
webpage creation.

If you use File=>Save As Web Page-Filtered, it will
produce 'lighter' web pages, but some of the 'roundtrip'
capability would be lost.

On the other side, there are some Word layout
features that are not direcly supported in browsers
and whether a .doc or .htm file Word creates text reflow
documents, rather than set page layout documents.

======
Hi

We're now evaluating Word 2003 and had hoped that the 'save as web page'
feature would work this time. Unfortunately it would appear that it does
not. When saving our regular 'bulletin' document as a web page Word *still*
manages to cock up all the formatting. Why? Will this ever be fixed?

Cheers

Mike >>

Signature

I hope this helps you,

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

The Office 2003 System parts explained
http://microsoft.com/uk/office/editions.asp

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lostinspace - 10 Dec 2003 16:33 GMT

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Varley" <>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.word.web.authoring
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 10:20 AM
Subject: Saving Word 2003 document as web page still poor!

> Hi
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Mike

Mike,
As Bob expressed to you, Word was designed with the capability to
provide ease of use for non-web creation with "no learning curve" while
providing the capability to return the intended document back to Word.

The likely problem your experiencing in loss of formatting (although you
didn't designate what specific formatting,) is likely because the formatting
(fonts and font sizes along with Word art and/or images and colors your
using) are not cross browser compliant.
You need to educate yourself on what is acceptable for cross-compliant
pages.

Likely, even if your pointed the original Word document to an Adobe
Distiller print you would experience similar loss (unless you embed images
and fonts, which drastically increases file size.)

Another option to consider with Word may be to explore the CSS option. It is
imperative that you keep in mind that when you use Word solely with the
intent of creating webpages, that you may be restricting your audience (due
to lack of cross-compliant pages) to MS users ONLY.

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PaulH - 19 Dec 2003 07:27 GMT

Why does the new Word version (compared to Word 97)
create HUGE files when Save As Web Page is used?

Word 97 creates neat, smallish files
Word I have on my work XP machine is now creating big
files with LOTS of HTM tags not needed.
Even if I save as a filtered Web Page it is still bigger,
why is this?

Can I download a "filter" that creates smaller files I
can upload quickly, not be bandwidth hungry for my users?

I am also told I cannot make a maco that I can run
to "search & replace" in the "HTML Source Code" like I
had in Word 97 (My macro used to Switch to source code
view and strip the smart quotes etc out of documents)

Surely I can do more and more quickly? Not less and in a
more time!

I'd also like "Save as HTML" on my file menu like I had
in Word 97 - is that possible?

I appreciate this is lots of questions. If you have time
to answer fully I would be grateful, but short answers
pointing me in the right direction would be a start.
Many thanks.

Paul.

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Bob Buckland ?:-\) - 19 Dec 2003 14:23 GMT

Hi Paul,

Word 6 through Word 97 used an add-in to create HTML
files that did a poor job of being able 'match' the
full content of .DOC files and didn't have very full
HTML compatability for HTML v3 or v4. (Word 97 was
released 8 years ago <g>).

The focus in Word 2000 and higher has been to produce
a web version of a Word .doc file that can be reopened
into Word and the full, original .doc file and to be
able to produce a web page from a Word document with no
HTML concerns or training other than File=>Save As Web Page
and includes the ability to save directly to a web server.
HTML is the internal document format used in Word and
all of the web content creation filter is built in.

For 'tailored' HTML MS Office FrontPage is the app that
MS suggests.

In Word 2003 you can use the File=>Save As Web Page-Filtered,
to produce leaner pages and the settings in
Tools=>Options=>Web Pages, Tools=>Options=>Save,
Tools=>Options=>Compatability and Tools=>Options=>Security
can all influence the size of the resulting web page.

For doing work at the source level you should be able
to use Tools=>Macro=>Microsoft Script(source code) editor
if you want to work on the HTML, or you can turn on
Tools=>Options=>General [x] Confirm Conversions at open
and when you open a .HTM file you can choose 'text' as
the file type to have Word open the HTML file in source
code mode where you can use search and replace.

========
Why does the new Word version (compared to Word 97)
create HUGE files when Save As Web Page is used?

Word 97 creates neat, smallish files
Word I have on my work XP machine is now creating big
files with LOTS of HTM tags not needed.
Even if I save as a filtered Web Page it is still bigger,
why is this?

Can I download a "filter" that creates smaller files I
can upload quickly, not be bandwidth hungry for my users?

I am also told I cannot make a maco that I can run
to "search & replace" in the "HTML Source Code" like I
had in Word 97 (My macro used to Switch to source code
view and strip the smart quotes etc out of documents)

Surely I can do more and more quickly? Not less and in a
more time!

I'd also like "Save as HTML" on my file menu like I had
in Word 97 - is that possible?

I appreciate this is lots of questions. If you have time
to answer fully I would be grateful, but short answers
pointing me in the right direction would be a start.
Many thanks.

Paul. >>

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