Saving Office Documents As Web Pages

You can save any of your Office documents, such as Word documents, Excel worksheets, and PowerPoint presentations as HTML documents (you can also convert Publisher publications to the HTML format using the Publish to the Web command on the File menu). After you save an Office document in the HTML format, you can view the document in the Internet Explorer Web browser.

HTML Short for Hypertext Markup Language, HTML is the language in which data is presented on the World Wide Web. Office uses the term "Web Page" to define the format type in which you save an Office document for the Web. You are actually converting the document to HTML format.

Saving Office documents as Web pages is similar regardless of whether you are using Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. The Save As Web Page command on the File menu is used to save an Office document in the HTML format. Access is the exception, however: Access objects, such as tables, can be made into Web pages using the Export command on the Access File menu.

Before you save a Word document, Excel worksheet, or a PowerPoint presentation as a Web page, you might want to preview the document as it would appear in a Web browser. For example, suppose you have a PowerPoint presentation and you would like to see how it would look on the Web.

Select the File menu and then select Web Page Preview . It might take a moment as your file is prepared; when it's ready, Internet Explorer opens and your Office document appears in the browser window. Figure 7.4 shows a PowerPoint presentation in the Internet Explorer window. Notice that links to all the slides in the presentation have been automatically created for the Web version of the presentation.

Figure 7.4. You can preview an Office document as a Web page.

After you preview your Office document as a Web page, if things look good, you can quickly save it as a Web page in the HTML format. Next, take a look at saving a PowerPoint presentation as a Web page to get the overall feel for converting any Office document to the HTML format (the procedure is similar in Word and Excel). Follow these steps:

1. Choose the File menu and then choose Save As Web Page . The Save As dialog box appears (see Figure 7.5).

   Figure 7.5. Office documents can be saved as Web pages.

   

2. In the File Name text box, enter a filename for the Web page document or go with the default name provided (it will be the current name of the file). Notice that in the Save As Type box, the file type is Web Page.

3. If you want to change the page title for the presentation, click the Change Title button. Type a new title and then click OK .

4. Click Save . Your Office document (in this case, a presentation) is saved.

PowerPoint Enables You to Select the Slides for the Web Page In the case of PowerPoint, you can select the slides in the presentation that you actually want to include in the Web page document that you are creating. Click the Publish button and select the slides you want to include in the HTML document. You can also specify in the Publish dialog box which Web browsers (such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator) the PowerPoint Web page should support.

When you save an Office document, such as a Word document or PowerPoint presentation, as a Web page, you have the choice of saving the file as a single file Web page (where all the pictures and other items are made part of that file), or you can save the file as a "typical" Web page that actually creates several files. Any graphics, objects, or other special elements in the document are saved as separate files in the appropriate format for the Web.

For example, in the case of PowerPoint, if the presentation file named Broadway.ppt is saved as a Web page (not as a single file Webpage), the home page would be named Broadway.htm . Then, PowerPoint creates a folder named Presentation Name Files (for example, Broadway Files) that contains all the other HTML, graphics, and other files needed to display the complete presentation. If you are transferring the HTML presentation to another PC (which is very likely, if you are going to make it available on the World Wide Web), you must transfer not only the lone HTML home page, but also the entire associated folder.