WD97: Features Not Available During Web Authoring

• Microsoft Word 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

When authoring Web pages in Word, you can use many familiar Word features, such as spelling and grammar checking, AutoText, and tables. Some features are customized to make Web authoring easier, such as graphic bullets and lines. Features that are not supported by HTML are not available for authoring Web pages. The list below explains which features are changed or unavailable when you are authoring Web pages.

                      Available
Feature               or changed     Notes
-------               ----------     -----

Columns               See Notes      Newspaper columns are not supported
                                     in HTML, but you can use tables to
                                     create a multicolumn effect.

Comments and Track    See Notes      Word comments and track changes
Changes                              features are not supported in HTML.
                                     You can use strikethrough formatting
                                     to represent text that might be
                                     deleted. For comments, you can format
                                     text with the Comments style.
                                     Comments will not appear in Web
                                     browsers.

Highlighting          No             Highlighting is not available in
                                     HTML.

Font sizes            See Notes      Fonts are mapped to the closest HTML
                                     size available in the <FONT SIZE>
                                     tag, which ranges from size 1 to 7.
                                     These numbers are not point sizes but
                                     are used as instructions for font
                                     sizes by Web browsers. Word displays
                                     the fonts in sizes ranging from 9
                                     to 36.

Bold, strikethrough,  Yes            Special underline effects, such as
italic, underline                    dotted underline, are not available.

Animated text         See Notes      Animations are not available. For an
                                     animated effect, insert scrolling
                                     text.

Emboss, shadow,       No             These font effects are not supported
engrave, small caps,                 in HTML

Tabs                  No             Tabs are not available because they
                                     are often displayed by Web browsers
                                     as spaces. To control the layout of
                                     your page, use a table.

Ruler                 See Notes      The ruler does not appear by default
                                     because margin settings, indents, and
                                     tabs differ in the Web page authoring
                                     environment. You can point to the
                                     gray area at the top of the document
                                     to display the ruler.

Equations, charts,    See Notes      When you save charts, equations,
other OLE objects                    organizational charts, and other OLE
                                     objects in HTML format, a graphic
                                     image is created. You can use these
                                     graphics on your Web pages, but you
                                     won't be able to update the data they
                                     represent. If you need to later
                                     update data in a chart or equation
                                     that you're displaying on a Web page,
                                     save a backup copy of your file as a
                                     Word document (.doc format).

Drawing objects,      See Notes      These items are not available on the
such as AutoShapes,                  Drawing toolbar. They are available
text effects, text                   as Microsoft Word Picture objects--
boxes, and shadows                   click Object on the Insert menu, and
                                     then click Microsoft Word Picture.
                                     Once you close your document, the
                                     graphic becomes a GIF image, and you
                                     will not be able to update it using
                                     the Drawing toolbar again.

Headers, Footers      No             Headers and footers are not supported
                                     in HTML.

Footnotes, Endnotes   No             Footnotes and endnotes are not
                                     supported in HTML.

Cross-references      No             Cross-references are not supported in
                                     HTML. You can use a hyperlink to jump
                                     to another part of your web page.

Master documents      No             Master documents are not supported in
                                     Web page authoring. You can separate
                                     large amounts of text into unique Web
                                     pages and then insert hyperlinks to
                                     these smaller documents onto one Web
                                     page.

Mail merge            No             Mail merge is not supported in HTML.

Versioning            No             Versioning is not supported in HTML.

Styles                Yes            When you define your own styles, only
                                     the formatting that's supported in
                                     Web page authoring will be available.

Paragraph formatting  See Notes      Some paragraph formats, such as

                                     to control how paragraphs flow,

                                     before and after paragraphs, and line
                                     spacing aren't available. To control
the
                                     layout of your page you can use a

Tables of contents,   No             The Word tools for creating these
tables of                            items are not available. You can
authorities,                         simulate a table of contents by using
indexes                              hyperlinks.

Page borders          No             Borders around pages are not
                                     supported in HTML. You can use a table
                                     to border a page, or to make the page
                                     more interesting, you can add a
                                     background by using the Background
                                     command on the Format menu.

Page numbering        No             An HTML document is considered a
                                     single Web page, regardless of its
                                     length.

Margins               No             To control the layout of a page, you
                                     can use a table.