Microsoft Word 2D: Word Web Pages: Backgrounds, Themes, Colors, Images

Using Microsoft Word for Web Pages :

• You can view any Word document that you have created as a web page (click on File / Web Page Preview)
• Microsoft Word converts your document into a web page format when you File / Save As and select "Web Page (html)"
• Your original document may not look always look exactly the same in web page format though

Note Microsoft Publisher (currently available on PC versions only) has similiar tools and options to Word and also has many templates and wizards for creating web pages quickly

Backgrounds, Themes, Colors, Gradients and Images etc.

• You can select a color or a gradient for the background of your document by clicking on Format / Background and selecting a color
• By selecting Format / Background / Fill Effects you may also select a gradient, texture, pattern or picture

  Note if you select a background image, the image will be tiled across the background of your document as shown below

Tiling

• Tiling the image means that it is duplicated to fill the entire space instead of stretching it out and distorting it
• When Internet connections were very slow years ago this was a popular method of getting an image to fill the screen quickly as the picture size is small and comes up much quicker than if a single large image the size of the screen were to appear
  • Even on newer computers with dial-up connections it may take for example 30 seconds for a large image to appear, however with a fast connection tiling isn't as necessary as it once was
  • Many images that you have seen may have in fact been "seemless tiled" images where you don't even notice where one image starts and the other ends (kind of like a wallpaper effect)

Themes

• To apply a theme, click on Format / Theme as shown below

• A theme will apply a color scheme and a background image and graphic based on certain patterns and color combinations

  Note a theme will not be displayed on your screen unless you click on File / Webpage Preview. Alternatively if you would like to see the theme while you are working save the document as a webpage

  Note double-clicking on a file after converting it to a webpage html file will open it in the browser. To open it in Word simply right mouse click the file (Control + click for Mac) and select Open With / Microsoft Word

Columns

• Columns should be avoided when creating a web page in Microsoft Word, as they may not appear as desired, instead you should use either tables or text boxes (described below)

Tables

• Tables have been used traditionally in all web pages design programs
• The cells in the table may contain images or text.
• Tables allow text and images to slide around when a window is made smaller in the browser
• Tables were covered in Word1F (you can go back and review if necessary)
• You may modify the following in the tables:
  • height and width of cells in table
  • background colour of cell or entire table
  • text colour and size of cells
  • the size of an image in a table

Text Boxes

• Text boxes are frequently used in designing web pages recently as it is easier to move a text box to exactly on the page where you want to place it versus inserting text into a table and resizing the cells
• Text box colors are often different than the background to stand out, as demonstrated

Inserting Images in Web Pages

• When you insert an image in a Word document it becomes part of the Word document when you save it normally, however this is not the case when you save the document as a web page
• The image is not saved in the html document
• Where is the image then?
  • The image is saved in a folder as a seperate file
  • The image will still appear when you open the web page file in Word or the browser because the web page has some code which automatically opens the image
  • Important if you copy an html web page that you create on to a different computer or email it none of the pictures will appear
    • You would have to send not only the html file to the other computer, you would also have to find each and every picture that was used in the web page in the folder on your computer and send them too!
    • A web page consists of various html documents that are linked together and usually 10 to over a hundred seperate image files as well
• Most web page images are in the .gif or .jpg format, png is also less common. If you insert a .bmp image into a Word document then save the document, the .bmp image will be converted to a .gif file and saved in a folder.

Creating Hyperlinks to Web Pages on the Internet

• To create a hyperlink in Word, highlight the text or image and click on Insert / Hyperlink
• Enter the entire web address in the "Link to" box

Example: http://www.msn.com

Note as shown above don't forget the http:// portion.....(hint it is easiest done by copying the address from your browser and pasting it versus keying it all out and making a mistake)

Note: to test your hyperlink in Microsoft word you must click on the link while holding down the Ctrl key on the keyboard

Creating Hyperlinks to Other Web Pages on Your Computer that You Have Created

• Instead of typing the http://msn.com you would enter the name of the other web page e.g. page2.html (or whatever you have named the file)

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