Front and Center: Should You Use Publisher?

The general consensus in the Web development community is that Publisher is a great solution for desktop publishing, but a mediocre solution at best for Web development. While the features surrounding Web development in Publisher have been dramatically improved in Publisher 2003, it still does not excel as a Web development tool.

One problem you might encounter when using Publisher to generate your HTML pages is an inconsistent appearance in different browsers. Figure 42.13 shows a simple Web page in Publisher. Figure 42.14 shows the same page in Internet Explorer after it was saved as a Web page in Publisher. Figure 42.15 shows the same page in Netscape. It doesn't take a sophisticated eye to see that the Web page is useless when viewed in Netscape. These are the kinds of problems you might encounter if you use Publisher as a Web design tool.

Figure 42.13. A simple Web page in Publisher.

Figure 42.14. The same page in Internet Explorer after being saved as a Web page in Publisher.

Figure 42.15. The same page viewed in Netscape Navigator. Notice that the content has been moved around and the page is no longer useful.