Creation of Web site

Create a Web site with Microsoft Publisher 97

I here explain how I mixed the presentation approach by Publisher, strengthened by some computing tools, the programs Change & Sweep and Cram to see in our site of the Pressibus Freewares.

A dimension to manage

Publisher is a tool adapted for little sites. For more than around 30 pages, it is better to cut the project in several directories (folders), and to link them.

At the beginning, the Pressibus site was wholly in one Publisher file. Quickly, I cut it in one main file and 6 others several files corresponding to 6 sub-folders. For example, the first page of a sub-folder called the first page of another sub-folder ("revues") by the URL ../revues/index.html, and the first page of the main folder by ../index.html (these links are to be managed manually) (and be care to write in lower cases the names of the folders).

How to personalize pages

For each of my Publisher files, I created a .bat file where I have put commands of the program Change to do in each page the personalisations that Publisher cannot do. I execute this file after each generation of the Html pages by Publisher. What does it contents ?

Commands to center the texte
for %%F in (*.html) do change %%F "<a name" "<Center><a name"
for %%F in (*.html) do change %%F "<\body>" "<\Center><\body>"
<Center> </Center> goes behind the <Body> (just before <a name...) and before the </Body> of each Html file. It is a good method for all Html files.
Commands to change the title of each page. Ex :
Change page7~1.htm "BdBric Futur<" "Freewares<"
(page7~1.htm is the Dos name of page7.html, "BdBric Futur" is the name of the Publisher file)
Commands to use several times the same image (better than create several identical images). Before, you have to create a text frame, of the same size than the picture, containing a specifical texte, for instance yybaudoin4 :
Change index~1.htm "yybaudoin4" " <img width=77 height=250 border=0 src="+34+"baudoin4.gif"+34+">"
(before, you have marked that the size is width=77 height=250) ("+34+" means ")
At least, I use the freeware Cram to compact and reduce from around 5% the size of the Html pages :
Cram *.htm (the remove of saved files : Del *.bak)

Anything may be modified

On the same way, you can put more complex modifications, as insertion of keywords (Meta Name...), of forms etc.

Two limitations :

The length of a Dos command is maximum 128 characters. So to manage long chains of characters, it is necessary to make one command (more than 128) in several (less than 128). It is boring.
Change does not treat files with a size less than around 64 K, but only very big pages has such a size.

Easy to actualise

The big advantage of this method is to allow a complementary work between two users. One, computing technician, prepares the .bat files. The other, office manager, prepares the Publisher files, sometimes do some little modifications in the .bat. So this last person, with a limited logistic help, may manage an important site.

Page created by Alain Beyrand in march 1997 in french,
created on august 1997, the 22th, in english.

Back to Pressibus page 1
Display the frames of Pressibus Internet Perso
La même page en français
Next page