FrontPage 2000 frequently asked questions (FAQs)
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Archive of FrontPage FAQs information:
- Why does FrontPage display an error message when I try and import files?
- How can I create thumbnail images using FrontPage?
- I moved some of my web pages around in Windows Explorer and now FrontPage reports that there are broken links - what's happened?
- How do I move out of a nested table if there isn't any text below the nested table?
- How can I separate a table from another that follows immediately afterwards?
- A user reported an error opening a PDF file even with the latest Acrobat reader - what was wrong?
- Why was there an error when I tried to check a link by control-clicking?
- Can I copy tables from Word?
- How can I insert an automatically updated 'last modified' date on a page?
- How do I get text to flow around an image?
- How I can preview my pages at different screen sizes or in another browser?
- When I search, why aren't all my pages listed if I'm using FrontPage Hover buttons?
- I have a different number of columns on two rows of my table - how do I get both rows of columns to be distributed evenly?
- Why can't I change my hidden form field values - FrontPage doesn't save the modified values?
- How can I create the text that appears in the browser when the cursor rolls-over an image?
- How can I stop FrontPage scrolling too quickly when I try to select text?
- Why are some of the staff names on my Who's who page in a different colour to the rest?
1. Why does FrontPage display an error message when I try and import files?
If you see the following error message: 'An error occurred accessing your FrontPage web files...' when attempting to import a file or files into your FrontPage Web, it is either because an individual file is over 1Mb in size or because the total size of all the files on the import list is over 1Mb. If you are attempting to import multiple files, none of which is over 1Mb in size, the solution is to import the files in more than one go so the total remains below 1Mb. You may need to import large files one at a time. If a single file is over 1Mb you will need to drag and drop a copy of the original file into the location where your FrontPage files are stored using Windows Explorer instead of importing the file using FrontPage. Having done this, in FrontPage you should switch to the folders view and select 'Edit', 'Refresh', to ensure that FrontPage registers the fact that a file has been added. Otherwise you won't see that file listed with the others in your Web.
2. How can I create thumbnail images using FrontPage?
Rather than inserting a large image into a page, it's much better to create a smaller version of that image and create a hyperlink to the large image. That way you avoid a long download time for the page. The smaller version of an image is often referred to as a 'thumbnail' and you can automatically create a thumbnail of any web image in FrontPage without needing to learn a graphics application. As well as creating a thumbnail version of the image, FrontPage will automatically link the new image to the larger version. This works for both GIF and JPG formats.
Here's how to create a thumbnail image:
- Import the large image that will be the basis of the thumbnail into FrontPage
- Open the page in which you want to include the thumbnail and insert the original image where you want the thumbnail to appear
- Select the image by clicking on it - you should see that the drawing toolbar appears at the bottom of the screen. Providing that the image is wider than 100 pixels, you should see the following icon:
.
[If the icon is greyed-out and you want to create a thumbnail of an image already smaller than 100 pixels wide, you can alter the thumbnail settings by selecting 'Tools', 'Page Options', 'Auto Thumbnail' and decrease the width or height values to create a smaller thumbnail]
- Click the Auto Thumbnail icon. The image will now reduce in size. The default settings will mean that the new image has a width of 100 pixels and has a two pixel border, indicating that the image is hyperlinked. You can change the width of the border by right-clicking the image, selecting 'Picture Properties', 'Appearance' and altering the 'Border thickness' value. Your original image remains unchanged; the thumbnail is simply a new, smaller version
- Click the 'Save' icon the save the page and the new thumbnail image. You will see a window entitled 'Save Embedded Files' appear.
- Click the 'Change Folder' button and select the 'images' folder within your FrontPage Web. Click 'OK'.
- You should now see listed under 'Name' the name of the thumbnail image, under 'Folder', 'images/' and under 'Action', 'Save'. Click the 'OK' button.
If you now switch to the 'Folders' view and open the images sub-folder, you'll see that the thumbnail has been saved with the same name as the original large version but with '_small' appended to it. The file format of the thumbnail will be the same as the original image.
Tip: In case you always want a 1 pixel border around the image, change the setting via 'Tools', 'Page Options', 'Auto Thumbnail'.
3. I moved some of my web pages around in Windows Explorer and now FrontPage reports that there are broken links - what's happened?
When you move files within FrontPage, the application automatically keeps track of the changes and if the pages you are moving are linked to and from other pages, FrontPage will update the links on those page accordingly. This is also true for the renaming of files - again, FrontPage will automatically keep track of the changes and ask you if you want to avoid breaking any links. As best practice advice, always move and rename files in FrontPage rather than by using Windows Explorer.
4. How do I move out of a nested table if there isn't any text below the nested table?
You'll probably find at some point that you need to enter some text below a nested table but it's not clear how to move out of the nested table if there isn't already text immediately beneath. The answer is as follows:
- Position the cursor in the last cell of the last row of the nested table.
- Press the 'Ctrl' and 'return' keys at the same time - the cursor should now move to a new paragraph beneath the nested table.
See the following question for more information on editing tables in FrontPage 2000.
5. How can I separate a table from another that follows immediately afterwards?
In FrontPage 2000, if you have a table that immediately follows another table, it's not obvious how to separate the two tables with either a blank paragraph or some text. The answer is as follows:
- Position the cursor at the beginning of the first cell of the second table.
- Press the 'Ctrl' and 'return' keys at the same time - the tables should now separate.
- Once the tables have separated, you can either press the spacebar to create an empty paragraph or enter some text to keep the tables apart.
This advice also applies if you want to put a new paragraph before a table that appears at the very beginning of your page.
6. A user reported an error opening a PDF file even with the latest Acrobat reader - what was wrong?
The message "There was an error opening this document. File does not begin with '%PDF'-" is not to do with the version of the Acrobat reader, rather it is because your PDF file has a name that contains blank spaces. All you need to do is rename the file, replacing spaces with either hyphens (dashes) or underscores.
7. Why was there an error when I tried to check a link by control-clicking?
If you are editing a page, control-clicking a hyperlink will open the linked page. If you are using this method to check your links, it works OK for other pages in your web but we'd advise against this. One problem you might encounter is when following a link to an external page you see either an error message or you are prompted to open the linked page as another format. Using the reports view is best practice but if you do want to check links on just the one page, simply preview the page and then check the links.
8. Can I copy tables from Word?
Just as with copying and pasting plain text from Word documents, it is best to paste the table-formatted text without the original formatting. This way, you avoid copying unwanted Office code.
Here’s how:
- In Word, position the cursor within the Word document table you want to copy.
- Select ‘Table', 'Select Table’ from the main Word toolbar.
- Select ‘Edit’, ‘Copy’ to copy the selected text.
- In FrontPage, position the cursor where you want the table to appear.
- Select ‘Edit, ‘Paste Special’ from the main FrontPage toolbar.
- Select ‘One formatted paragraph’ and click ‘OK’.
The text contained within the Word document table will now appear on the page. - To reformat this text as a table, first select all of the text you just pasted. You may find that holding down the ‘shift’ key and then using the arrow keys is the easiest way of selecting a long section of text.
- Select ‘Table’, ‘Convert’, ‘Text to Table’.
- Select ‘Tabs’ as the separator and click ‘OK’.
- Your text should now be back in a table. Select ‘Table’, ‘Select’, ‘Table’ and under the styles menu, select ‘Normal’.
If you see that a single cell should span across several columns, right-click the cell and select ‘Cell Properties’. Then set the 'Columns spanned' number as required. For example, if your table has three columns and you have one cell that should span the entire row, set the number of columns spanned as ‘3’. If you want a cell to span more than one row, change the 'Rows spanned' number instead.
9. How can I insert an automatically updated 'last modified' date on a page?
The quick way of automatically adding the last modified date is:
- Open one of your pages and type 'Last modified: '.
- Select 'Insert', 'Date and Time' from the main toolbar.
- When the 'Date and Time Properties' window appears, select the first option 'Date this page was last edited'.
- Select the date format you require, e.g. August 10, 2001 and leave the time format as '(none)'.
- Click 'OK' and FrontPage will insert the automatically-updated date in the page for you.
10. How do I get text to flow around an image?
In order to have text flow around an image:
- Insert an image on the page.
- Enter some text immediately beside the image - the words will initially flow from the bottom right-hand corner of the image.
- Right-click the image and select 'Picture Properties'.
- Click on the 'Appearance' tab when the 'Picture Properties' window appears.
- Change the 'Alignment' value from 'Default' to 'Left'.
- Set the horizontal spacing value to '5'. This will add a gap of 5 pixels either side of the image.
(If you require some space vertically, change the vertical spacing value to '5' as well.) - Click 'OK'.
The text will now flow to the right of the image, beginning at the top right-hand corner till a line of text clears the image, after which the text continues beneath. If you want to insert a break in the text so that the remaining text immediately flows beneath image:
- Position the cursor at the point you want the text to break.
- Select 'Insert', 'Break' from the main toolbar.
- When the 'Break Properties' window appears, select the 'Clear left margin' option.
- Click 'OK'.
To flow text to the left of an image, simply repeat the first steps above but set the alignment value as 'Right'. Likewise, to insert a break when the image is aligned to the right, select the 'Clear right margin' option instead. There is no option to flow the text both sides of the image.
11. How I can preview my pages at different screen sizes or in another browser?
If you just click the 'Preview in Browser' icon, you'll see the page in your default browser. If instead you select 'File', 'Preview in Browser', you will get the chance to select another browser and to change the size of the browser window. Change the settings as required and then click 'Preview'. To return the preview facility to normal, again select 'File', 'Preview in Browser', select your default browser and set the window size as 'Default'.
12. When I search, why aren't all my pages listed if I'm using FrontPage hover buttons?
If you use hover buttons to link to other pages, you should take into consideration that search engines cannot follow links defined within the hover button and consequently, the linked pages will not be indexed. If you do want to use hover buttons, be sure to also include normal text hyperlinks at the bottom of the page, for example, that can be followed by search engines.
In a web page table, once you have set the width of a cell, that value will apply to the width of all the cells in that column - either above or below. You can have a column span the width of two or more columns but you can't have a column with a width of 30% above or below a column with a width of 40%. Instead, you'll need to create a separate table which has its own independent column widths:
- Click anywhere in the existing table and from the main toolbar select 'Table', 'Select', 'Table'.
- Select from the main toolbar 'Edit', 'Copy'.
- Click immediately below the existing table.
- Select 'Edit', 'Paste' - a copy of the table will now appear immediately beneath the original.
- If you want to change one or more rows in the middle of the original table you'll need to position the cursor below the copy of the table and select 'Edit', 'Paste' to insert another copy as you want the original layout to continue afterwards.
- In the table that you want to have a different layout, select the duplicate cells you don't want, right-click and select 'Delete Cells'.
- In the original table, delete the duplicate row or rows that appear in your new table.
- If you pasted another copy of the original table beneath the new table, you'll also need to delete the duplicate cells.
- You can now set the widths of the new table independently of those set in the original table - to set an equal width to each column in a row, select the entire row, right-click and select 'Distribute Columns Evenly' or set the widths of the columns via 'Cell Properties'.
14. Why can't I change my hidden form field values - FrontPage doesn't save the modified values?
Hidden form field values are those which don't appear to the user but are nonetheless sent along with the user-submitted data. For example, the 'email_subject' value which is used with the mailform script - see the forms and questionnaire documentation in Creating forms in FrontPage 2000.
FrontPage 2000 has trouble changing a value once it has been set so rather opting to 'modify', instead:
- Open the form page in FrontPage
- Right-click the form and select 'Form Properties'
- Click the 'Advanced' button to see the hidden values
- Select the form field you want to change and select 'Remove' instead of 'Modify'
- Click 'OK' to close the hidden fields window
- Click 'OK' to close the form properties window
- Save the page so that FrontPage registers the removal
- Right-click the form again and select 'Form Properties'
- Click the 'Advanced' button and click 'Add'
- Enter the name and new value of the hidden field
- Click 'OK' to close the hidden fields window
- Click 'OK' to close the form properties window
- Save the page.
Note: This issue has been fixed in the Service-Release 1 version of FrontPage 2000.
To see if you have the SR-1 version, select 'Help', 'About Microsoft FrontPage' - 'SR-1' will appear beside the product licensing details if you have that version.
15. How can I create the text that appears when the cursor rolls-over an image?
This is known as the 'alt text' and appears when the user rolls the cursor over an image. If no text has been specified, no text will appear. This alternative text is important for visually-impaired users as their browsers will read the text in place of the image. You should specify the alt text for all your images: right-click the image in FrontPage 2000 and select 'Picture Properties'. The 'Text' field listed under 'Alternative representations' is where you type the alt text for the image.
16. How can I stop FrontPage scrolling too quickly when I try to select text?
If you are trying to select more than a screen's worth of text, FrontPage will often scroll the page too quickly to accurately limit the selection. The simplest way to select multiple lines of text and images is to drag down the first few lines and then hold down the shift key and press the 'down' arrow key. You can also use the other arrow key to control the limits of your selection.
17. Why are some of the staff names on my Who's who page in a different colour to the rest?
Any bookmarked text changes colour when processed. If you have added a bookmark to one of the staff names, it's worth bookmarking all the names so they all appear in the same colour.
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