Does anyone use MS Publisher?

[vorpalbunny]

Hi,

I have a chance to get MS Publisher 2007 at a greatly reduced cost, but someone whose expertise is very much appreciated (hi, rlhanson! ) told me that it adds a lot of excess coding. That's not a good thing when it comes to creating ebooks (which is primarily what I wanted it for.) It also seemed pretty cool that Publisher can be used to design web sites too - though not if it adds a lot of unwanted code, and in any case I'm trying to learn HTML.

Can anyone suggest a less cluttered way of converting .doc, .txt, or .rtf files to PDF without the expense of Acrobat?

Thanks in advance,

vb

[jmarcv]

Publisher.

I don't know about 2007, but the Publisher I used didn't add a whole lot of extra code, but it pretty much converted everything to graphics. Not good. I suggest you use an HTML editor to do HTML, not a marginal publishing program. Doing "Raw" html is some work, but eventually after a high learning curve, you get better results.
Arachnophilia is fairly good for a free program. It is very plain.

As for PDF, I use the BullZip PDF printer driver. So you can be in any windows app and 'print' the file to a PDF. Works very well and is free.
http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php

[vorpalbunny]

Thanks for the info, John-Marc. I've decided not to get Publisher, no matter what kind of discount I'm offered. I'll be looking at BullZip for PDF ("free" is definitely more within my price range anyway! )

As for HTML, I just finished writing my first set of practice paragraphs using Notepad - extremely simplistic stuff for you guys who've been around for a while, but I am completely psyched! This HTML stuff is too cool!

[jmarcv]

Whoa! Notepad? That means you are SERIOUS! I use NoteTab, which is a super-notepad and has a lot of 'fill in the blank' HTML, CSS, Javascript stuff. Also does html syntax coloring. I LOVE it! The 'lite' version is free. http://www.notetab.com/

[andychev]

Whoop Whoop for publisher, It doesnt really apply to you but for anyone that stumbles across this thread i just wanted to give my thumbs up for publisher especially when it comes to ameteur web design. I began designing websites on pub 97 many years ago an it was superb. It has loads of built in tools for making your 'first' website and teaches a lot of the basics of html. The code it produces is ok, probably even better now than pub 97 was. The problem with it converting everything to images is quite an easy one to resolve you just have to be very careful with text/image boxes. As soon as they overlap they are automaticaly converted to an image.

[vorpalbunny]

Thanks for the info; now I'm more confused about what to use than ever!

[rlhanson]

Vorpalbunny -
We all have our preferences and for me, limited experience. I know enough to be dangerous.

I prefer table style html and use dreamweaver to design my sites. My sister uses Publisher for her enewsletters and such. Every few months she gets something screwy with a file and we bare it down to html with no publisher coding (images, layers, etc.).

I recommended notepad as it is bare to the bones, no help provided, coding html. For me...repetition created memory. Once the code made sense, then I went for the editors for help and speed!

Congratulations on making your first html document - doesn't it feel great?!

[vorpalbunny]

Thanks Lynne, I think you're right about it being a matter of both preference and of limited experience (or in my case, no experience!)

I've had personal web pages before but always used my various hosts' site design tools, so I always felt that I had very limited control over the results - but html seemed too complex for me. Several people here at Glowhost have encouraged me to try, and I'm so glad you did! It was truly cool typing in a bunch of tags and having them turn into background and font colors, images, links, etc. - fantastic! I'm looking forward to learning a lot more!

Here's where my lack of experience is actually going to work in my favor (I hope): I'm starting off with notepad and eventually it will become what I'm used to, so it won't seem any more difficult than any other program I could have started off with. It's great that there are so many available, though; that way, everyone is sure to find one that suits him/her.

[jmarcv]

Well, congrats on wanting to use notepad, or rather, going "base" - but I seriously encourage you to try notetab. I think you will see what I mean.

[rlhanson]

John-Marc,
I am definately going to try notetab based on your recommendation as I frequently will open up a file in notepad to make minor changes.

Thank you for posting the link and your recommendation - it is always appreciated!