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Building a Web site, whether for internal, external or combined use, is the core component of the ongoing maintenance of your sites. Content is the thing that keeps people actively involved in the site and it will keep them coming back for more and more information from your site.
As you've seen throughout this book, content comes from a number of locations. There are interactive sources and static sources as well as easier and more difficult ways to produce it. Microsoft has products that build the pieces of content you're likely to be using as spreadsheet, document processing, presentation and database tools. You've already seen, in chapter 11, how you can connect your databases to your site.
In this chapter, we'll be exploring how you can use the native Office tools to create and manage the sites that you are working with. The office products offer some good advantages that lend themselves to rapid content design and maintenance. We'll be taking a look at the following aspects of the Internet Assistants:
In this chapter, you'll find out how to put these tools to work for you and how they can save you time in bringing up your site. The key to the Assistants, and where they provide you with the most benefit, is that time when you're either climbing the learning curve for HTML or you need to require quickly bring up a page or series of pages. The Assistants really shine as a learning tool. You can allow them to create the pages for you, then you can review the code created to understand how it was done.
When you're creating and maintaining a Web site, you'll find that information, content and layout is changing so fast and furious that it may be difficult to keep up. One technique is to maintain a site mirror for your Web site. This site mirror should be located on a different system from the Web server.
One technique I've used is to create an \HTML subdirectory and then a \SITEMIRROR subdirectory under the HTML directory. The purpose of the SITEMIRROR directory is to mimic the root directory on your Web server. With Microsoft's server, this root directory for the Web server is initially "\WWWROOT").
Other directories off the HTML directory can include utilities, graphics, etc. Directories off SITEMIRROR should exactly match your production web site. When you're developing code, you can place it in your SITEMIRROR first and run it to make sure it looks as you expected. When the code is ready, you can migrate it to the production site.
This approach offers a couple of benefits. First, you have an environment that allows you to test without impacting your production system. This is very valuable as one of the biggest benefits of these systems is their availability - you never know when someone will be looking to the system for information. This is good, but just in the time it can take you to put a page on your Web site and find out it isn't what you want, you can have people accessing it.
The second benefit is that this SITEMIRROR configuration provides an invaluable backup mechanism if your server should experience problems. In the worst case, if you have to take down the server and install new equipment and/or software, you can restore the SITEMIRROR directories into the WWWROOT area and you'll be all set and ready to go.
One of the worst things to experience is having a technician ask "when was your last backup" and not have a short-timeframe to offer as an answer!
Ever have a technician ask "When was your last backup?" 
The concept behind the Assistants is that you are able to create documents in the tools you already know how to use. Then, using the Assistants, you can automatically convert your documents to HTML for use on the Web, whether it be on an internal network or an Internet server.
In any event, when you save the file, you'll have the option to save it as an HTML file as shown in figure 12.1.
Fig. 12.1 - Web pages appear, along with applicable styles, and you can use these pages as templates to base your pages on, saving you time in the learning process.
 The Microsoft Word Assistant Site is located at the address <http://www.microsoft.com/msoffice/msword/internet/ia/>.You should occasionally check back with this site to determine the current version for the product. |
In general, the Word Assistant will help turn your Microsoft Word word processing system into a Web browser and content creator. Since you're using the Word editor to create and manage content; as well as view it on-line, you can call up a page, change to the editing mode and make changes to the source. This can provide you with some real leverage as you can borrow code from other pages in the creation of your own Web content. As you can see in Figure 12.2, you don't leave Word to view the page, but can view and edit it without changing to a separate browser.
Fig. 12.2 - You can review web sites from within the Word Assistant.
 Web content is usually copyrighted material to the author originally posting the material. When I say you can borrow code, you should be looking to borrow the HTML approach or other techniques from the site, but not the content. If you like the content, create a link to the page and notify the author of the page. Perhaps they'll link to your site as well, creating a nice two-way exchange of the idea that caught your eye. Never cut and paste content from another site and re-use it without asking the original author for permission. |
In the coming sections, you'll see exactly how to install the Word Assistant and what types of things you can do with it.
When the Assistant is installed, it creates a new file, FAVORITES.DOC, located in the Word directory. The Favorites file contains links to all of your different URL's that you save using the Favorites button in the Assistant. If there is an existing Favorites file, the setup process will prompt you to keep or replace the existing file.
If you do save your previous version, it is saved as FAVORITES.BAK. You'll need to open Word and the favorites document and paste in your links from the backup file if you'd like them to appear when you select the Favorites button. |
After the Assistant has been installed, you'll be prompted about whether to use the Assistant as your default HTML editor. If you select Yes, your Registry will be updated to use Word any time you edit an HTML document. Note that Internet Explorer will still be your default Web page viewing tool; Word will only be used to modify HTML
When finished, the setup program will prompt you about whether you want to go directly into Word or simply exit the setup routine. In either case, the file that is loaded on your system is WIAHTM32.WLL, a Word-based WLL that provides the Web-browsing capabilities. In addition, a new toolbar will be installed and a new standard button will appear in Word when you're working with standard documents (see fig. 12.3).
Fig. 12.3 - The new browsing button allows you to switch between editing and browsing mode.
Figure 12.4 - Use the browse-mode button to switch between the modes of Web-browser and content editing on your system.
If you do not see the browse-mode button on your toolbar, you have probably turned off the formatting toolbar. From the menus, select View, Toolbars and select the Formatting toolbar. This is the menu the option is placed on by default. If you need to move the option to another toolbar, you can use the Customize option and add the button to another location as needed. |
Figure 12.5 shows the new formatting menu, complete with URL specifications, Favorites and more. This menu appears only if you're in browser-mode. Note, too, that the document you had loaded into Word when you selected the browser mode button is now being displayed in read-only mode and is shown as it would appear on the Web. The Word Assistant has "converted" the document to HTML and is displaying what the results would be if the HTML document were posted to a Web site.
Fig. 12.5 - You can use the browse-mode button to switch to preview mode, showing what your current document would look like on the Web. Selecting browse mode also provides the options to specify a URL to be loaded into the browser for review.
By selecting the URL button, as shown in figure 12.6, you can go to any page on the Web that you like and see the page at that location. You can specify the URL as a valid Intranet address using any of the different protocols that have been covered in chapter 3, in the section titled "Understanding URL's."
Fig, 12.6 - You can call up any URL available to your system and browse it and its associated links by clicking on the URL button.
In addition, new menu options are available on the menus, allowing you to work with the HTML source as well as see and set many different attributes about the page. The next section explains these options in detail.
F
ile Menu Options
There are different options available depending on whether you are in Word editing mode or Browse-mode. If you are in Word's editing mode, you'll have the following options available on the File menu:
When you are in Browse-mode, the File Menu is modified with five additional options:
Fig. 12.7 - You can review the Title assigned to the page with the <Title></Title> HTML tags when you initially select the HTML Document Info... option.
If you have write privileges to the file, as may be the case with your Intranet installation, you can make changes to the title directly in the dialog box. The changes will be saved to the HTML in the header of the document per HTML convention. If you don't have ready access to the file, as may be the case if the file is on a remote server, you may have to save the file to disk first, then upload the file to the site you want to host the document.
Fig. 12.8 - By selecting Advanced from the initial dialog box, you can see the URL that is defined as the starting point for the current page. This is indicated by the <base></base> tags for the Web document.
The Base URL is very important if you're using relative addressing at the site. Base URL's allow you to indicate where relative addressing should begin on your site for addresses referenced in the current page. Relative addressing allows you to indicate a URL for pages by only specifying the portion that changes. In other words, like in a DOS or Windows environment, if your base URL is "//myserver/examples" and you want to refer to a page in a subdirectory under "examples," you can do so by simply indicating "/newdir/filename.html" and the Web browser will substitute the fully qualified path for you automatically. The result would be a fully qualified URL of "//myserver/examples/newdir/filename.html."
The IsIndex option allows you to indicate that the file is a searchable page. This means that, when a browser is directed to the page, you can indicate the search parameter on the URL. For example, if, in the example above, you were to make it a searchable page, you could call up the page by indicating:
http://myserver/examples/newdir/
filename.html?findthis
where "findthis" is the reference on the page that you want to move the user's browser directly to.
The search capability is typically a server-side implementation. If you're developing an Internet site, you may have to contact the service provider for an appropriate program that runs on their system and provides access to your pages in the way of a search engine. |
The Meta option allows you to indicate any values you need represented in the <Meta> tag options for the document. The Meta tags provide additional information about your document to the browser. They are not displayed, but are used more to process the page and indicate other values that can control the refresh of the page, what editor was used to create the page, etc.
As you can see in Figure 12.9, the Meta option on the Advanced dialog box allows you to set up the Meta tags you want to implement.
Fig. 12.9 - You can call up any URL available to your system and browse it and its associated links by clicking on the URL button.
V
iew Menu Options
The View menu is modified with two new options as outlined below. These options are available regardless of whether you're browsing the Web or editing a document.
Browse--The Web Browse option offers the same functionality as the Web Browse on the main menu, which is to provide you with the ability to use Word as your editor and page viewer on the Web.
In addition, once you're browsing the Web, you'll have a new option, HTML Source. This option will open the page in Word and allow you to see and work with the HTML source directly. Figure 12.10 shows an example of how this is presented in Word.
Fig. 12.10 - By reviewing the source of other people's Web pages, you can quickly understand how HTML is implemented and how it might be coded to work with your desires.
This can be helpful if you need to make small changes to HTML generated by the Assistant, or it also allows you to implement features of HTML that the Assistant does not yet support.
You should check the Microsoft site at http://www.microsoft.com frequently to see if new versions of the Assistant are available. With the rapidly expanding offerings that are available on the Web, it's important to always be using the most up-to-date tools available.
You may want to consider using a Web monitoring tool. Tools, such as the URL-Minder, allow you to indicate a Web page to watch. Periodically, the tool checks to see if the requested page has changed. If so, the tool will send you an email message indicating that you should check back at the target site to see what has changed.
The Internet and Intranet tools, policies and capabilities are on the verge of exploding into something much larger than they are today. The possibilities are endless and a number of people are working these markets very diligently. To that end, you can surely expect a flurry of enhancements, corrections and the like to the software tools that you use to manage your sites, content and presentation of the information on your network.
The Constant Search for the Latest and Greatest
You can find the URL-Minder at <http://www.netmind.com/URL-minder>. There you can register pages you have an interest in and allow the tool to monitor the page for you. The service is free and even includes information about how you can provide users of your site this service directly from your site.
I
nsert Menu Options
There are a number of options that are added. These options allow more control over your HTML that will be created for a given page. In Word document editing mode, there is only a single option added to the menu, Insert HyperLink. Whether you are working with a standard document or a document destined for your Intranet, you can insert a link to another file/location combination and insert it into your document. Figure 12.11 shows the HyperLink dialog box.
Fig. 12.11 - Links to other content can be of any supported type, be it http, file or other protocols supported by your network connections.
When you insert the hyperlink in your document, it will be displayed in the document just as it would on a Web page. It's shown as underlined and the color you've established for your Word environment. You can use these hyperlinks to connect to other documents, as might be the case where you want to create a master document and allow users to move around a "Web" of documents that, taken together, comprise a much larger book-type document.
It's good practice to simply make the hyperlink a part of the sentence rather than specifically directing the user to "click here". For example, consider the two following statements: To get the latest copy of the Personnel Manual, click here. Be sure to review section... The Personnel Manual has been updated. Be sure to review section...
The second statement follows emerging standards that indicate you use the hyperlink marking to indicate the link instead of calling it out specifically as in the first example. |
When you are browsing pages, there are three different options available. These are:
- in your documents, you should always be looking for ways to logically break up the information your users are viewing. By placing divider bars in your Web documents, you can break the page into logical units that may be easier for the user to become accustomed to.
The Horizontal Rule option, shown in figure 12.12, places a line on your page, at the thickness you specify. Note that Horizontal Rules go across the entire page regardless of where in the line you are when you create the Rule.
Fig. 12.12 - Use Horizontal Rules to break up the content on your pages.
Marquees are a great way to catch users' eyes as they work with your pages. They can be implemented to indicate new features, or they can indicate other important bits of information.
 Don't over-do it with the Marquee capabilities. You should avoid having more than two Marquees on a given Web Page. Too many Marquees may initially look interesting, but, over time, people viewing your site will thank you for keeping Marquees to a minimum as they quickly become distracting. |
Fig. 12.13 - You can specify all of the different supported Marquee options to be applied to the finished page.
F
ormat Menu Options
The Format menu understandably provides a number of options that control the look and feel of your pages. As you can see in Figure 12.14, the entire set of options is specific to the Web environment, though many are implemented in parallel with Word options.
Fig. 12.14 - The Format menu offers selections to control many of the overall aspects associated with the form, ranging from background images and sound to how levels and numbering are handled.
Table 12.1 summarizes the options and how they are used in general. For more information, you should look up the tags associated with the options and how they are implemented in HTML.
| Menu Option | Description | BASE HTML Tag |
|---|---|---|
| Background and Links | Sets up background image and colors used for hyperlinks on the page | <BODY> |
| Background Sound | Background music or sound that plays when the page is loaded | <BODY>, <BGSOUND SRC=... |
| Font | Allows you to select the font you want to display on the page* | <FONT> |
| Increase Font Size, Decrease Font Size | Affects the text you have selected. | N/A |
| Style | Applied as standard Word Style capabilities | N/A |
| Center Align, Left Align | Set the alignment for the selected text. | <ALIGN=...> |
* Microsoft provides support for True Type Fonts on Web pages. To enable these fonts, you use a special format of the <FONT> tag. The new extensions to this tag allow you to indicate a True Type font face to use in the display of your page, such as <FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">. Since these are new extensions, you'll need to code them using the HTML Markup menu option described in the previous section.
The balance of the options allow you to work with the indenting levels for the pages and are implemented the same as they are in a typical Word document editing environment. Remember, the key is to create the content as you normally would, then allow the Assistant to convert it to HTML for you.
T
ools Menu Options
The Tools menu hosts a single custom option, Proxy Server. If you are using a gateway product, you'll need to specify the name of the gateway in the dialog shown in Figure 12.15.
Fig. 12.15 - Proxy servers can be set up to provide a good level of protection between your users and the Internet. Proxy servers control how your system is accessed both for incoming and outgoing requests.
Fig. 12.16 - You can control many of the different aspects for how the table will look, ranging from heading rows to style of lines between the cells.
Tables are the core of sites as they become more organized and more adept at displaying the information presented. If you consider some alternative uses for tables, you'll quickly see why.
For example, if you have a series of graphics that you need to line up, you can use tables and cells in the tables to contain the graphics, thus ensuring that all of your information will be exactly in line.
Tables also provide great ways of placing content on the user's display proportionally to the display size. Since tables can dynamically size, your content, displayed in the table, can size as well, but still stay in the confines of the appropriate cell.
You can also use tables to create a newspaper-like look and feel on your pages. Simply write a "column" of information (column 1) in the first cell. For the second and subsequent columns, simply add a new column to the table and insert your text as needed. The table will resize to the user's desktop and you'll have the effect you want of having snaking columns or simply side-by-side stories.
Tables - More Than a Spreadsheet
Tables, frames and other user interface control items are among the fastest changing elements in the content wars between the different major players in the browser market. To provide for many of the features that users are coming to expect, many different extensions are being created as the HTML specification is expanded. Since the specification is growing so quickly and from so many different fronts, be sure to check on the latest capabilities of your target browser. In the cases specifically relating to this book and the systems that are set up with it, the Microsoft Internet Explorer is the browser targeted for the majority of the clients that are expected. When you review specification extensions, keep in mind your target audience, and always be sure to check to see what the impact on other browsers will be.
In some cases, features you implement that are specific to one browser will prevent another browser from seeing your content at all, which is probably not a good way to go about having a popular site! This might be the case with the use of Frames or other leading edge features for a given browser. |
As mentioned in the previous sections, the Word Assistant can be a great help preparing tables as it will convert your word processing tables into HTML tables. What can you do if you have workbooks full of information and need to be able to create HTML to correlate to it? You've probably guessed by now that you would use the Excel Internet Assistant.
The Excel Internet Assistant takes the range of cells you indicate and creates the HTML for you. It will take care of formatting, fonts, coloring, etc. It will create the HTML in a format that you can use in a standalone fashion, or it will create only the series of HTML statements that are required to create the table you indicate. In the latter case, you can then paste this HTML into another page for display among other information.
The Excel Internet Assistant is easy to install and use, but it doesn't offer the same Web-browsing capabilities of the Word Assistant. With that in mind, it's an excellent quick and dirty tool for table-creation from existing spreadsheet-type information.
As with all of the tools covered in this book, you should always check the Internet to see if a more recent version is available. The Excel Internet Assistant, and information about updates, is available at <http://www.microsoft.com/msexcel>. |
If you'll be using the Internet Assistant for Excel often, you should consider placing the XLA file in your XLSTART subdirectory. This will allow Excel to load the Add-In automatically each time it starts. If you do this, you'll not need to follow the steps below to register the Add-In for Excel. |
Once you've placed the file on your system, you can open the XLA file directly and a new option will be placed on your menus, as shown in Figure 12.17.
Fig. 12.17 - A new option, Internet Assistant Wizard, lets you start the Assistant from within Excel.
Once you've created your sample text, highlight the range you want to convert. In the following steps, you'll convert the worksheet range shown in Figure 12.18.
Fig. 12.18 - The sample range includes fonts, shading, colors and other formatting that will help show off the translation capabilities of the Assistant.
Select the range to convert and select Tools, Internet Assistant Wizard from the menu system. This will start the Assistant and, as shown in Figure 12.19, you'll be prompted to confirm the range you want to convert.
Fig. 12.19 - To begin the conversion, you can either highlight the range to convert, or you can manually type it into the Wizard.
You can also highlight the range by moving the dialog box out of the way on your display and highlighting the cells you want to use for the HTML conversion. |
Once the range that's displayed is correct, select the Next button. In the overview section above, there is mention that you can generate a complete HTML page, or only the table extract for inclusion in another page. The dialog box shown for Step 2, shown in Figure 12.20 below, is where you tell the Wizard which type of HTML output you'd like to receive.
Fig. 12.20 - The Wizard can create an entirely new page or insert your new table into an existing page.
The difference between the two options amounts to opening and closing HTML statements that will or will not be created based on your decision. In addition, if you select the Existing Table option, the Wizard will expect you to have an already existing HTML page. For more information, see the next two sections.
Fig. 12.21 - You should always specify an email address for your page. This allows someone to write you a quick note if they can contribute to the information on the page.
The items shown in figure 12.21 are the items that are not included in the option to insert your new table into an existing page. |
Since you have so many different formatting options available to you with Excel, the Wizard offers you the option of ignoring your formatting and creating a simple table to display the information you've selected. In some cases, this can be preferable to allowing the Wizard to attempt to convert the formatting. This could be the case where you have a heading, such as the one used in the sample, that spans the top of the columns. (see Figure 12.18) Since the heading spans multiple columns, it influences the appearance of other columns on the output. More information will be provided about working with this type of situation at the end of this section on the Excel Wizard.
Figure 12.22 shows the dialog box that allows you to indicate whether you want to convert the formatting, font and other attributes of the range you specified. If you indicate that you do not want the information formatted, the table will be created to show only the information in text mode.
Fig. 12.22 - It's probably a good idea to allow the Wizard to convert formatting, at least initially. If you decide you'd rather do the touchups yourself later, you can re-run the Wizard and exclude the formatting instructions then.
The final bit of information you'll provide to the Wizard is the name of the file you want to create. You'll need to specify where you want the file placed on your system (see fig. 12.23). You should probably put this file into a working area where you can test it prior to rolling it over into a site mirror that you may have on your system.
Fig. 12.23 - You'll need to specify a fully qualified path to the location that you want to use to save the HTML that will be created.
Select Finish to save the HTML to the file you indicated. You'll have a new page created for you based on the information you've provided and the information in the underlying worksheet. Figure 12.24 shows the results of the conversion.
Fig. 12.24 - You can see that some formatting is changed in the output. In particular, the heading in the table is different from the original in the worksheet.
You may have to make some fine adjustments to the results to make them look exactly as you'd like, but you'll find that the Wizard creates a great starting point.
In the next section, we'll show how you can create a table and insert it into an existing page, saving the time needed to integrate the two pages.
<!--##Table##-->
If you use the Internet Assistant for Word to create the page, you cannot just type the text into your document. Instead, you'll need to use the Insert, HTML Markup option from the menus. Type the "Table" code shown above at the prompt to save it to your page in the correct format.
Also, be sure to save and exit the document in the Word Assistant prior to trying to insert the table. If you still have the file open in Word, you may receive a sharing violation, or file in use error message, when the Excel Wizard attempts to save the table to the file. |
You'll next be prompted to indicate whether you'd like to save the formatting you've applied to the region. As is the case when creating an entire page, it's probably a good idea to allow the Wizard to apply the formatting at least the first time around.
Lastly, you'll be prompted for the name of the file that will be the resulting HTML source. The Wizard will take the original file with the insert tag, merge the table code into the HTML and save the results to the file you indicate. In the example here, the following shows an excerpt from the code that's created.
Listing 12.1 - 12LIST01--Portion of the HTML Created by the Wizard
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Internet Assistant for
Microsoft Word 2.0z">
<TITLE>Untitled</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<P>
Que Sample Page
<P>
This page was created first, and then the table was
inserted into
it.
<HR>
<P>
<!-- The following table has been generated by the
Internet Assistant Wizard for Microsoft Excel. You can
find this add-in on "http://www.microsoft.com/msoffice/
freestuf/msexcel/index.htm" -->
<!-- ------------------------- -->
<!-- START OF CONVERTED OUTPUT -->
<!-- ------------------------- -->
<Table border>
<TR VALIGN="bottom">
<TD ALIGN="left"><FONT
FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=+6>
BIG text with Comic Font Face</FONT></TD>
<TD ALIGN="right"><FONT FACE="Arial">
</FONT></TD>
<TD ALIGN="right"><FONT FACE="Arial">
</FONT></TD>
<TD ALIGN="right"><FONT FACE="Arial">
</FONT></TD>
<TD ALIGN="right"><FONT FACE="Arial">
</FONT></TD>
...
...
</TR>
</Table>
<!-- ------------------------- -->
<!-- END OF CONVERTED OUTPUT -->
<!-- ------------------------- -->
<HR>
<P>
You can just blah blah blah blah ...
</BODY>
</HTML>
You can see that the comment line tagging where you'd like to place the table was removed and the table code was inserted.
In the next sections, you'll see how you can turn your PowerPoint presentations into Web presentations, and you'll see how these techniques have been applied to the Reality Check site.
This is where the PowerPoint Internet Assistant comes in.
As with the Word and Excel Assistants, much of the power of these tools comes from the fact that you have nothing new to learn, aside from how to use the tool to create the HTML. The facets that make up using the underlying tool to create the content are already known to you.
The PowerPoint Assistant gives you the ability to translate an entire PowerPoint presentation into a series of pages that represent your presentation in both text and graphical presentation. Your users will be able to see the graphics just as you've designed them and they'll be able to choose to see the text on the slides, or they may want to simply move between the slides directly.
As with all of the tools covered in this book, you should always check the Internet to see if a more recent version is available. The PowerPoint Internet Assistant, and information about updates, is available at <http://www.microsoft.com/msoffice>. |
In the coming sections, we'll describe how to install the PowerPoint Internet Assistant and what you can expect as you save your files in the new manner.
When you start the installation, you'll be asked to confirm that you want to install the Assistant. Only a few files are copied to your system to enable the process, so the installation procedure is very quick. Once installed, the setup program will display a message box indicating the success of the installation.
Fig. 12.25 - The PowerPoint Assistant is implemented as a new Export process option on the File menu.
The PowerPoint Assistant works differently than the other Assistants that have been covered thus far. In the other environments, you ran a process that would create the needed HTML. With PowerPoint, there are no changes to the operation of the system whatsoever. Instead, when you are ready to create the pages, you choose the new option to Export as HTML from the File menu. This causes the process of creating the pages to start.
When you start, you'll first be asked where you want to save the pages and in what format the graphics should be saved (see Figure 12.26). In most cases, you should select GIF for the graphical format. GIF files tend to be a bit smaller and can "fade in" on the user's system, potentially making the pages readable more quickly than with JPEG images.
Fig. 12.26 - You'll need to indicate where you want to save the new files and what format the image should be saved in.
If you're creating new pages for an existing series of pages, you should first delete all files that you are replacing, or move them to a backup subdirectory. This is because, if you have fewer files on the new series than were there before, you will end up with "remnant" files on the system that are not necessary for your site. Cleaning out the directory before placing the files there ensures that only those files that are created with a given use of the Assistant will be used. |
For each slide in your PowerPoint presentation, the Assistant will create two forms for your Web site. There will be one form that is the Text representation of the slide, and one that is the graphical representation. Your users will have the ability to choose how they want to see the slides as they work with your site.
Each slide will require as much as 30K in disk space. If your presentation is large, you may need to direct your new pages to a disk drive with more free space. |
With the Internet Information Server, the opening page for your site directories is "DEFAULT.HTM" by default. The Assistant will create pages with a starting page of INDEX.HTM, the default on some other systems. You have three different options when you create these automated pages. |
The slides are created based on two templates, located in your POWERPNT subdirectory. The files, IMAGE.TPL and TEXT.TPL, set up the format for the Assistant as it saves the slides for your site. Listings 12.2 and 12.3 show the default layouts for these files.
Listing 12.2 12IMAGE.TPL02--The template used to create the graphical image pages.
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<**TITLE** <TITLE>%s</TITLE> **TITLE**>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<CENTER>
<**HEAD*** <H1>%s</H1> **HEAD***>
<P>
<**IMAGE** <TABLE BORDER=5>
<TD><IMG SRC="%s"></TD>
</TABLE>**IMAGE**>
</P>
<P>
<TABLE>
<TD HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=60>
<**PREV***
<A HREF = "%s"><IMG SRC="p2hprev.gif"
ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="Previous slide" BORDER="0">
</A> **PREV***> </TD>
<TD HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=60>
<**NEXT***
<A HREF = "%s"><IMG SRC="p2hnext.gif"
ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="Next slide" BORDER="0"></A>
**NEXT***> </TD>
<TD HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=60>
<**FIRST**
<A HREF = "%s">
<IMG SRC="p2hup.gif" ALIGN=BOTTOM
ALT="Back to the first slide"
BORDER="0"></A>
**FIRST**> </TD>
<TD HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=60>
<**MODE***
<A HREF = "%s">
<IMG SRC="p2htext.gif" ALIGN=BOTTOM
ALT="View text version" BORDER="0"></A>
**MODE***> </TD>
</TABLE>
</CENTER>
<BR>
</p>
<**NOTES**
<Font size=4> <STRONG> Notes:</FONT></STRONG>
<HR SIZE=3>
<P> %s </P> **NOTES**>
<**TEXT*** <!-- %s --> **TEXT***>
</Body>
</HTML>
Listing 12.3 - TEXT.TPL - Template for Text Based Pages
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<**TITLE** <TITLE>%s</TITLE> **TITLE**>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<**HEAD*** <H1>%s</H1> **HEAD***>
<**TEXT*** <P>%s</P> **TEXT***>
<P>
<TABLE>
<TD HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=100>
<**PREV***
<A HREF = "%s">Previous slide </A>
**PREV***> </TD>
<TD HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=100>
<**NEXT***
<A HREF = "%s">Next slide </A>
**NEXT***> </TD>
<TD HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=150>
<**FIRST**
<A HREF = "%s">Back to the first slide </A>
**FIRST**> </TD>
<TD HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=150>
<**MODE***
<A HREF = "%s">View Graphic Version </A>
**MODE***> </TD>
</TABLE>
<BR>
</p>
<**NOTES**
<FONT size=4><STRONG>
Notes: </FONT></STRONG>
<HR SIZE=3>
<P> %s </P> **NOTES**>
</Body>
</HTML>
You can make changes to these files to allow for how you want your pages to look. You'll probably want to add copyright notices and email addresses as default information, and perhaps a link to an overall home page as well. In any event, if you don't care for some element of style applied to these pages as a default, these are the templates you'll use to make changes in how the slide shows are translated.
The things that required additional conversion centered on graphics. When a document has a graphic on the page, it will require additional help and possible reformatting when it comes to the final presentation of the page on the Web. In the sample pages brought up, there were cases where it was necessary to re-size graphics to a more appropriate size for Web page review.
It will also be necessary to take the pages created by the Wizards and review them on-line while you're working with the HTML directly. In some cases, you can make small changes to the pages, for example left-aligning a graphic to make text flow around it, that will make the pages more readable on-line. In addition, you may want to remove some formatting that does not produce the desired effect.
One item noticed with the Word Assistant is that if you have a variety of fonts implemented in the document you're converting, it may be necessary to "clean up" the resulting HTML. In conversions created for the Reality Check site, it seemed that the Assistant occasionally missed "turning off" a font or style, requiring manual updates to the HTML. The closing HTML is typically the same as the opening tag, but with a forward-slash inserted. For example, for the <BODY> tag, the closing tag is </BODY>.
In general, the Wizards and Assistants provided a great way to convert existing content and create new pages. When it comes to "tweaking" the appearance, though, you'll likely want to use a simple text editor, perhaps NOTEPAD or Windows Write, to make the small adjustments.
The following chapters and sections provide additional information that relates to the information provided in this chapter:
Copyright ©1996, Que Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Making copies of any part of this book for any purpose other than your own personal use is a violation of United States copyright laws. For information, address Que Corporation, 201 West 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290.Notice: This material is from BackOffice Intranet Kit, ISBN: 0-7897-0848-5. The electronic version of this material has not been through the final proof reading stage that the book goes through before being published in printed form. Some errors may exist here that are corrected before the book is published. This material is provided "as is" without any warranty of any kind.