Adding Existing Files to a Web Site

Let us compare a Web site to a manila file folder for a minute-any container that can hold a bunch of stuff related to a particular project. If you're redesigning your son's bedroom, for example, your file folder might contain a random assortment of bits and pieces: fabric swatches, paint chips, pages torn from magazines, and rough sketches of the furniture layout.

Think of your Web site folder in a similar way. It should contain all the random files you will use for your Web site, regardless of whether you include them in their final form. For example, you may have written some brainstorming notes about the text for certain Web pages in Microsoft Word. (We talk about pasting text into Web pages in Chapter 3.) Or, you might have created some PDF files that you will make available for download. You also might have created a logo and some icons and cropped and sized a collection of photos in your graphics program. (We cover including pictures in a Web site in Chapter 5.)

All these files can and should go into your Web site folder, by either dragging them directly into your Web site's Folder List task pane or importing them. There are two reasons for this:

• If you're going to use the file in its final form (such as a picture file or a downloadable PDF), Expression Web needs to have the file in the Web site so that it can create and maintain working links to that file. This ensures that when you publish your site on the Internet, all the files for the Web site get copied to the host server correctly. (You can exclude files you don't need in their final form, such as text documents, when you publish your Web site. We show you how in Chapter 12).

• Keep everything in one place so that you don't have to remember where all your stuff is.

Tip 

You can open documents and work on them in their original programs from within Expression Web. For example, if you import a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet into your Web site, double-click the file's icon in the Folder List task pane to open it in Microsoft Excel.

If you have one or two files to bring into your Web folder, it's a snap to drag them from a folder on your computer or network into your Web site's Folder List task pane directly into a specific folder, as shown in Figure 1-6.

Figure 1-6: Drag files from your computer into the Expression Web Folder List task pane.

If you have several files in different locations, or if you want to bring in entire folders, you can load everything into the Import dialog box and import everything in one fell swoop. When you import a file, Expression Web places a copy of the file inside the open Web site and leaves the original file and its location unchanged.

REMEMBER 

In this section, we show you how to add existing files to the Web site that's open in Expression Web. To import an entire Web site from the Internet into Expression Web, take the Import Web Site Wizard for a spin. (We explain how later in this chapter.)

In the following steps, we show you how to import single files from your computer or local network into the Web site that's open in Expression Web. At the end of this set of steps, we tell you how to import entire folders.

1. With a Web site open in Expression Web, choose File Import.

   (If the File Import menu item is grayed out, in the Folder List task pane, click the Web site's top-level folder to select it, and then choose File Import again.)

   The Import dialog box appears.

2. In the dialog box, click the Add File button.

   The Add File to Import List dialog box appears. You use this dialog box to poke around your hard drive or local network to find the files you want to import.

3. Navigate your hard drive or local network and select the files you want to import.

   To select multiple files, press and hold down the Ctrl key while clicking file icons in the Add File to Import List dialog box. To select a range of files, press and hold down the Shift key while clicking the first and last file icons. If you don't see the file you want to import, from the Files of Type list box, choose All Files (*.*).

4. Click the Open button.

   The Add File to Import List dialog box closes, and the file appears in the import list in the Import dialog box.

5. To add another file to the import list, repeat Steps 2 through 4. When you're finished, click OK to close the dialog box and import the files.

   If you would rather put off importing the files, click the Close button in the Import dialog box. Expression Web saves the import list and closes the dialog box, which you can later access by choosing File Import.

To import a folder into your Web site, in Step 2 of the preceding list, click the Add Folder button. The File Open dialog box appears, enabling you to choose the folder you want to import. Click the folder and then click the OK button. The File Open dialog box closes, and the folder's contents appear in the import list.