by Ned Snell
Among the applications that can be enhanced with an Internet Assistant, Word is by far the most useful. After all, your goal is only to create a document (albeit a Web document), and Word is one of the best document creation, editing and formatting
tools around. As such, Word + Internet Assistant = an excellent companion tool to FrontPage, supplementing the FrontPage Editor's capabilities with advanced document creation capabilities like AutoCorrect, grammar checking, and more.
Internet Assistant is an add-on software package for Word 95 and is built into Word 97. What's the difference between Word alone and Word with Internet Assistant? The Internet Assistant adds Web-specific functions and views to Word, and adds support
for Web-related graphics formats like GIF and JPEG.
As you'll see shortly, the Assistant adds to Word a number of Web-specific document formatting capabilities. However, because most such capabilities are also included in FrontPage, the Assistant's real value is that it enables you to apply everyday
Word power to your Web authoring tasks. For example, you can apply the following Word tools:
When applying these and other Word tools, you needn't do anything specialuse these as you would when creating any document. However, keep in mind that the Web is the Web, and that your formatting in Word might not look the same to users of
various browsers as it does to you in Word (more about that later).
Before beginning to work with HTML files in Word, it's important that I remind you that a Word document is not a Web document, and vice-versa. The HTML specification governing Web document formatting (see Part III) is far more limited than Word's
toolset. Some of the formatting you can apply in a Word document has no corollary in the HTML world. For example, as you already know, you can control (in a limited way) the size of the font used for text in your Web document, but you cannot choose the
font itself. As a result, Word's font selection capabilities are meaningless when you're working with an HTML document.
Fortunately, when you are working on an HTML document, the Internet Assistant removes from Word's toolbar most of the formatting tools that have no HTML equivalent. And when you convert an existing document from Word format into HTML format, the
Internet Assistant discards Word formatting for which it cannot substitute an equivalent HTML tag (you'll learn more about this later in this chapter).
The Internet Assistant for Word adds to Word six things:
Figure 18.1. Word 95's toolbar shows new Web-related buttons after its Internet Assistant has been installed.
What's the Word Browser For?
The browser added to Word by the Word Internet Assistant is a strange animal. It's a bona fide browser, which means it not only accurately interprets and displays local HTML documents, but it also browses the Web (Inter or intra) through a Winsock-compliant connection. It has this online capability so that you can test the validity of external links. And if you weren't a FrontPage author, the browser might be valuable to you. But the Word Internet Assistant is just thatan assistant. FrontPage is the boss. Final page evaluation and link testing should always be done from within the FrontPage environmentespecially if you move the HTML file location when switching from Word to FrontPage, which might break relative links. In addition, you can bet that very few of your target guests will be using Word as a browser (unless you've deliberately configured them to do so on your intranet). So although the Word browser displays HTML files in a way roughly similar to that of most graphical browsers, it makes a rather poor evaluation environment. Better to view your documents in the FrontPage Editor, or through a widely used browser such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. These browsers give you a better sense than Word of how your documents will appear to the Web mainstream.
The Word Internet Assistant described in this chapter requires Microsoft Word for Windows 95 (technically Word version 7.0 or higher). That's it for software requirements, other than the Internet Assistant itself, which Word 95 users can download as
described in the next section.
NOTE
Keep in mind that Internet Assistant is built into Word 97. If you use Word 97 or Office 97, you should jump ahead to the section titled "Using Word's Internet Assistant."
As for hardware requirements, this book assumes you use FrontPage, or intend to. Given that, there's a very simple way to sum up the requirements for Word's Internet Assistant: If you can run FrontPage, you can run Word's Internet Assistant, provided
you have 2MB of disk space in which to store the Internet Assistant's files.
Of course you might choose not to run Word's Internet Assistant on the same PC you use for the FrontPage Editor. So here's the specific hardware requirements: At a minimum, the PC must be capable of running Windows 95 (and be doing so, in fact), and it
must be equipped with at least 8MB of RAM and a pointing device. You have all of that, don't you?
NOTE
If you intend to use the browser component of Word's Internet Assistant to test your document's external (remote) links online, you must meet a few additional requirements. The PC running the Word Internet Assistant must have a modem and phone line connection (or access to an HTTP intranet, for testing intranet links) and be configured to access the Internet or intranet through a Winsock-compliant TCP/IP stack (such as Windows 95's built-in TCP/IP Winsock). Note that a modem and Internet setup are not required to view your locally created Web documents through Word Internet Assistant's browseryou can do that offline. You need an Internet connection only for testing external links. And as a rule, you're probably better off testing links from FrontPage or Internet Explorer than from within the Word Internet Assistant browser, as described earlier in this chapter (see the section "What It Does").
Like any freely distributed Microsoft software, the Word Internet Assistant can be found all over the Web, and on a bunch of FTP sites as well. But to be sure you get the latest, most stable version, you must get your Word Internet Assistant straight
from Microsoft.
NOTE
All of the Microsoft Internet Assistants are included on the CD-ROM bundled with this book. However, it's important that you know how to get the Assistants straight from Microsoft because they are updated and enhanced regularly.
Microsoft itself makes the Word download available from a variety of links. The best place to start is the Word Internet Tools page (part of the Microsoft Office Website) at http://www.microsoft.com/msword/it_wd.htm
From the Word Internet Tools page (shown in Figure 18.2), you can easily download the Word Internet Assistant file or learn more about the Assistant. By starting at this page (rather than going directly to the file with a Web address or FTP address
listed here) you can be assured of picking up the latest version, and you'll also get a chance to read useful announcements (about upcoming versions, for example) along the way.
NOTE
The filename of the current version of the Word Internet Assistant is
WRDIA20Z.EXEHowever, updated versions are offered regularly. You should always navigate Microsoft's Web site to find the latest version, which may or may not have the name shown above.
Figure 18.2. The Word Internet Tools page at http://www.microsoft.com/msword/it_wd.htm.
The self-extracting archive file is only about 1.12 MB, so it doesn't take very long to download to your PC, even at 14.4 Kbps. When downloading, you needn't save the file in any special place (your desktop is fine), but be sure not to save it in your
WINWORD or WINWORD\INTERNET folder. Also, saving the file on your desktop or in a folder by itself makes deleting the archive file easier after installation is complete.
To install Word Internet Assistant after downloading the self-extractive archive file, do the following:
CAUTION
Before you begin setting up Word's Internet Assistant, make sure that the following statements are true:
- All programs are closed. Check your taskbar for any open programs. If any programs are running, the Setup Wizard might fail because it requires a system file already in use by another program.
- The self-extracting archive file is not in your WINWORD or WINWORD\INTERNET folder. If run from within either of these folders, the Setup Wizard might fail.
Figure 18.3. Starting the Setup Wizard.
Figure 18.4. Running the Setup Wizard.
A progress indicator appears as Setup decompresses the Internet Assistant files and copies them into the new folder. When setup is complete, a dialog appears like the one in Figure 18.5.
NOTE
During the installation process (or, in some cases, the first time you use the Word Internet Assistant), you might be prompted to choose whether you want Word's built-in browser to be your default Windows 95 browser. When prompted, you'll probably want to select No. If you choose Yes, Word will open automatically any time you open an HTML file from a file icon or enter a URL in the Run dialog. Most people prefer to have a more general purpose browser, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, as their default browser.
Figure 18.5. Setup is complete. Internet Assistant is ready to roll.
The dialog shown in Figure 18.5 informs you that Setup is complete (you need not restart Windows, as you often must after installing new software). You can click Launch Word to get right to work, or Exit Setup to leave your Internet Assistant authoring
for another time.
After installation is complete, you can delete the self-extracting archive file. If you want to uninstall the Internet Assistant in the future, you can do so through the Add/Remove Programs icon in the Control Panel.
Instant Internet Assistance
The dialog shown in Figure 18.5 advises you to introduce yourself to the Internet Assistant by opening Word, then choosing File|Browse Web (Browse Web is a new menu item just added by the Assistant). However, the instruction is a little misleading; choosing Browse Web opens only part of the Internet Assistant, Word's browser view. That view is used for evaluating pages and browsing the Web, not for nuts and bolts authoring. You create a new Web document through a different view, as you'll see in the next section. Why does Microsoft steer you straight to the browser? It's preconfigured to automatically open an HTML file called DEFAULT.HTM, which is one of the Internet Assistant files the Setup Wizard stored on your hard disk. This file (see Figure 18.6) contains a brief introduction to the Assistant, some answers to common questions, and links for connecting to pages at Microsoft containing more information.
You needn't follow Microsoft's lead, but of course, you're welcome to try File | Browse Web and see what you discover.
Figure 18.6. DEFAULT.HTM, an introduction to Internet Assistant presented in HTML format.
As a Word user, you're accustomed to working in a true What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get environment. But when working on Web documents in Word, you must keep in mind the variability among browsers, and that what you see is not always what your guests will
get.
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You can learn more about Word's Internet Assistant in a variety of ways:
- On the Web, Microsoft offers an online tutorial for Word's Internet Assistant. At this writing, the tutorial has far less information than you get in this chapter, but Microsoft might beef up the tutorial later. You can access the tutorial at
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbiz/leverage/nbackgrnd.htm- While editing an HTML document as described in the next section, a new item appears on your Word Help menu for Internet Assistant help.
If you open Word, close all documents (File|Close), and then choose File|Browse Web, Word opens DEFAULT.HTM, a brief introduction to Word's Internet Assistant.
To begin a new Web document, open a new file in Word by choosing File|New. (Do not use the New button on the toolbar; it won't present the template selection to you). In the New dialog that opens (see Figure 18.7), click the General tab, and choose the
template HTML.DOT, which was added to your templates library by the Internet Assistant.
A new, blank document opens on your screen, and the Word toolbar changes as shown in Figure 18.8. The changes to the toolbar add buttons for HTML-specific page elements such as links and rules. You can begin entering and formatting text and other HTML
page elements.
Figure 18.7. Creating a new HTML document by choosing the HTML.DOT template.
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You also can create a new HTML document in Word by clicking the Start a New Document button on the Office toolbar, which opens a folder of templates, including the Word template HTML.DOT. Double-clicking HTML.DOT opens Word and opens a new HTML document within Word.
You might be accustomed to saving documents after doing a good deal of work first. Word's Internet Assistant, however, is a little cranky in this respect. It wants the file named before you do anything that involves phrasing relative linkswhich
includes not only creating hyperlinks to local resources, but also adding pictures to your page. If you attempt to create a link or add a picture without first saving your new document, Word prompts you to do so. As a result, we might as well get saving
out of the way right now.
To save your document, choose File|Save. The Save As dialog shown in Figure 18.8 appears. Whenever you use the HTML.DOT template, the selection in Save as type will be HTML Document (*.htm); make sure that's the selection,
and if not, choose HTML Document from the Save as type drop-down list. Then type your filename, leaving off the extension (Word supplies the extension .HTM automatically). Click Save or press Enter to save the document and return to your authoring session.
CAUTION
When you save, the Save as type box must say HTML Document for the file to be saved in HTML format, even if you enter an .HTM extension on the filename yourself. The extension alone doesn't do the job.
Figure 18.8. Saving a new HTML document.
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If you compose many similar Web pages, you might want to save time by creating a an HTML document template containing all of the elements and formatting common to the pages you will create. (FrontPage does templates too; see Chapter 21, "Creating Web Pages with Templates.") To create a new template, compose the HTML document using the HTML.DOT template (you can save the new document as you go along, in HTML format). When finished, choose File|Save As, and choose Document template (*.dot) from the Save as type drop-down list. Word prompts you, asking whether you want a regular Word Template or an Internet Assistant template. Choose Internet Assistant, name your new template, and finish saving.
When you want to create a new HTML document based on the template, choose File|New, then choose the template you created.
In order to better illustrate how a new Web document can be built with Word and Internet Assistant, the examples in this section follow the building of a promotional page for Larry's Luggage.
Everything you create in the Word document window is treated as part of the body of the HTML file. But as you learned earlier in this book, every HTML file also has a header section that contains important identification information, such as the
document title and key words for use by Web search engines.
To enter header information for your document, choose the Title button on the toolbar (a little page with an I on it). A dialog opens like the one in Figure 18.9.
Figure 18.9. Entering header information for a Web document.
In the HTML Document Head Information dialog shown in Figure 18.9, type a brief, descriptive title for your document. The title is the only header information required, so you can simply click OK after typing your title, and return to compose the body
of your document. If you wish to add to your header such advanced elements as a Base URL or <META> tags, or if you wish to designate this document as the Index file for a multi-page presentation, click Advanced. (To learn
more about advanced header options, see Part III.)
To compose the body of your document, enter and edit text as you normally would in any Word document. You can use AutoCorrect, as well as the Spelling, Grammar and Thesaurus tools on the Tools menu. You can also take advantage of such Edit menu items
as Find, Replace, and Undo.
Formatting your document, however, requires a change in your understanding of the word "formatting." Recall from previous chapters that when you edit an HTML document, you don't so much "format" text as assign it attributes that
identify what type of page element that text represents: a bold heading, normal body text, a list item, and so on. Each browser used to view the document will display those elements in a different way. Certainly, you'll want to evaluate the appearance of
your document in Word, and in practice, the document will appear quite similar when viewed through leading Windows browsers such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Still, it helps to adopt a new mindset when formatting an HTML document: You're not
really formatting, you're just labeling text with style names, which browsers will use to apply whatever formatting they wish.
To apply an HTML style, position the edit cursor anywhere within a paragraph, then choose an appropriate style from the Style drop-down list in the toolbar, as shown in Figure 18.10. (Note that you needn't highlight the text; simply placing the edit
cursor anywhere in a paragraph applies the style to the entire paragraph.)
Observe that each choice in the Style drop-down list includes a description, followed by the actual HTML tag the style represents. In the example, I'm making the paragraph "Larry's Luggage" into a level 1 heading, oras the drop-down
menu puts itHeading 1,H1. "Heading 1" is the description for the style or page element, and "H1" is the actual HTML tag the Assistant applies to my text. Figure 18.11 shows the results of my style selection.
Figure 18.10. Choosing a paragraph style.
Figure 18.11. The results of the style selection made in Figure 18.10.
NOTE
Near the bottom of the Style drop-down list, you'll see choices for Bottom of Form and Top of Form. As these choices suggest, you can use Word with Internet Assistant to compose HTML forms designed to interact with server-based CGI scripts to collect and process user input. However, the FrontPage Editor offers a far more sophisticated forms facility, and the forms you can create in Internet Assistant might not work properly with the forms processor of a FrontPage Web, if that is where you intend to publish your Web document. For these reasons, composing forms in Word is not recommended for FrontPage users. Instead, you can compose the rest of the document in Word, then switch to the FrontPage editor to add forms.
To the right of the Style drop-down list are five buttons. The first two increase and decrease font size, while the other three apply bold, italic and underline character formatting, just as they do in Word
documents. For each of these tools, you must select the text you want to format, then click the button.
The six buttons to the right of the Underline button are used just as they are in regular Word documents to control text alignment, make lists, and adjust indenting.
To add a standard horizontal rule anywhere in your document, position the edit cursor where you want to insert your rule, then click the Horizontal Rule button on the toolbar. A rule appears at the insertion point, as shown in Figure 18.12.
Figure 18.12. A horizontal rule added to the document.
To delete a rule, click the rule and press Del.
Within Word, you can add inline GIF and JPEG images to your document (for more about GIF and JPEG inline images, see Chapter 10, "Enhancing Your Web Publication with Imagesthe Easy Way").
To add an inline image to your Web page, follow these steps:
Figure 18.13. Adding a picture to your document.
NOTE
In phrasing the path and filename of your GIF or JPEG file, you can use an absolute path, a relative path or a URL. Which one you must use depends on where both the picture file and your Web document are stored (or rather, where they both will be stored when published). When you choose a file through Browse, the link is automatically phrased as a relative pathname. To make it an absolute pathname, click Link Path in the Picture tab, click the checkbox next to Use fixed file location, then click OK.
To learn more about absolute and relative paths, see Chapter 9, "Adding Features to the Page."
After entering the Image Source, you can click OK to insert the image, or you can apply some options. The first option, Alternative Text, appears on the Picture tab along with the Image Source. To use this optional but recommended step, enter in the
Alternative Text box some text that carries the same basic meaning as the picture, or text that describes the picture. Whatever text you enter is displayed in place of the image in browsers that don't support inline images. This ensures that your document
won't confuse users of non-graphical browsers when a graphic contains important information, such as a company name. (Note that the FrontPage Editor also enables you to supply not only alternative text, but an alternative low-resolution version of a
picture. Some browsers can display the low-res version as a pretty placeholder while downloading the final, high-res image.)
The remaining options appear on the Options tab, shown in Figure 18.14.
Figure 18.14. Formatting options for pictures in your document.
In the Options tab, you can
To add a link in your document, follow these steps:
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In place of Step 1, you can type your desired link text directly into your page, highlight the text, then choose the Hyperlink button. The Hyperlink dialog shows the selected text as the Text to Display. You can then skip Step 2 and complete your link by performing Step 3. This technique is especially useful for making links out of selected words or phrases within a paragraph.
Figure 18.15. Inserting a link in your document.
Figure 18.16. The finished link appears in your page.
NOTE
In the Bookmark Location in File box, you can enter the name of a Bookmark within the current document, instead of entering a File or URL. (Bookmarks are more commonly called "anchors" in the Web authoring world.) Activating the link jumps the guest to that spot in the file. You create the Bookmark itself by positioning the edit cursor where you want the bookmark to go, then clicking the Bookmark button on the toolbar.< Using bookmarks, you can create a table of contents at the top of a long Web page in which each entry is a link to a bookmark later in the page. Such pages are a convenient alternative to multi-page Web documents.
Using the curiously labeled Background and Links dialog, you can change the color of the background of your page, insert an image in the background, or define custom colors for text and links. Note that all of these page enhancements are supported only
by browsers that are compatible with Netscape's enhancements to the HTML specification. They'll show up fine when your page is viewed through Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and several other browsers (which together comprise the overwhelming
majority of the Internet), but won't be supported in all browsers.
To customize your background and text colors, follow these steps:
Figure 18.17. Choosing a background and text colors.
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In the Background and Links Dialog, click the Do not scroll image if you want the background image to remain visible on screen no matter where a guest scrolls within the page.
These three fun and funky page elements are a blessing and a curse. Among popular browsers, only Internet Explorer supports these features. When you use these page elements in a page to be published on the Internet, the majority of your Web guests will
not be able to see them. In fact, even Word's Internet Assistant browser cannot show themyou must switch to Internet Explorer to see the results of your work.
With that caveat in mind, here's an overview of how to spruce up your page with these advanced multimedia page enhancements.
NOTE
If you intend to deploy your page on an intranet populated with users of browsers that support inline video, you might want to try an inline video clip. On the Internet, however, the great majority of Web surfers cannot see inline video clips, so external video clipswhich are widely supportedare a better choice.
To add an inline video clip, position the edit cursor in your page where you want the clip to appear, then click the Picture button on the toolbar (or choose Insert|Picture). In the Picture dialog, click the Video tab. A dialog box like the one in
Figure 18.18 appears. In Video Source, enter (or Browse for) the path and filename of the AVI video clip.
Figure 18.18. Adding an inline video clip.
In the Video tab, you can optionally choose the default Start Play setting of FileOpen (video plays as soon as the page appears) to MouseOver (video begins playing when the guest passes the mouse over the clip's position on the page). In Loop, you can
choose the number of consecutive times the clip should play, from 1 (clip plays once and then stops) to infinite (clips plays over and over until the guest exits the page). Finally, checking Show Controls displays a small control panel on the guest's
screen. The panel enables the guest to start and stop play at will.
Figure 18.19. Adding a scrolling marquee.
Figure 18.20. Adding a background sound.
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the Internet Assistant adds a fully functional Web browser to Wordwell, almost. Word's built-in Web browser is handy for quickly evaluating your text layout and other basic page elements, although such
elements are displayed WYSIWYG in the regular HTML Edit view. Unfortunately, Word's browser cannot display page elements or formatting based on extensions to HTML. These include font sizing, backgrounds, text colors, and other advanced formatting options.
To better view and test your page, you should open it in a better browserMicrosoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are excellent choices.
The Preview in Browser button on Word's toolbar opens the current HTML document within your default Windows 95 browser, the browser that opens automatically when you open any HTML file.
As you learned earlier in this chapter, not all Word formatting can be carried over into an HTML document. It's impossible to take a pre-existing Word document, convert it to HTML, and expect it to look the same on the Web as it does in Word. While the
Internet Assistant does its best to make a reasonable conversion, you'll almost always want to edit its choices somewhat, either in Word's HTML Edit view or in FrontPage. Still, the conversion usually gives you a good head start.
So what do you get when you convert? First, the Internet Assistant does its best to intelligently match your Word formatting to an existing HTML style. For example, a large or bold line of text might be turned into an HTML heading. A Word table becomes
an HTML table, and bulleted or numbered lists in Word become HTML bulleted or numbered lists. Inevitably, though, Internet Assistant will find text it doesn't know what to do with. Usually, such text is assigned an HTML <PRE> (preformatted) tag,
which preserves as much as possible the general appearance of the text in Word (except for font selection), including preserving tabs, which are omitted by other styles.
The following is a list of Word formatting and page elements that are ignored or deleted when you convert a Word document to HTML:
When converting your document from Word format to HTML, the Internet Assistant automatically converts all pictures in your Word document into .GIF format, and stores the GIF versions in the same directory as the HTML document itself. The Assistant also
renames the image files as IMG00001.GIF, IMG00002.GIF (and so on, in the order they appear in the document). These new names are the ones used to phrase the <IMG SRC> links that connect the images to your document.
Performing the conversion is a simple matter of saving the Word document in HTML format:
Figure 18.21. Converting a Word document to HTML.
After conversion, use Word's HTML Edit view or FrontPage to add the header information (such as the title) to your new HTML document, as described earlier in this chapter.
Fine-Tuning Word's Conversion Choices
If you make extensive use of Word styles in documents that will be converted to HTML, you might find it worth the trouble to "map" your Word styles to your selected HTML equivalents. After you do so, whenever you convert a Word document to HTML each of your Word styles will be converted to the HTML style of your choosing. Note that the following procedure requires editing the Windows 95 registry, which requires an advanced knowledge of Windows 95's innards, and is not a job for the squeamish. If you're uncomfortable about attempting the procedure, try some conversions first, and see what you end up with. You might find the default mapping selections adequate to your needs.
- From the Windows 95 Start menu, choose Run.
- Enter regedit to open the Windows 95 Registry Editor.
- In HKEY_CURRENT_USER, select the folder Software\Microsoft\Word, then select the Internet Assistant\StyleMap folder.
- On the Edit menu, point to New and then choose String Value from the submenu. A text box with the text New Value #n appears in the Name column of the Registry.
- Replace New Value #n with the name of the Word style you want to map to an HTML tag. Then select that style name.
- From the Edit menu, choose Modify.
- In the Value Data dialog, type the HTML tag you want to map the style to.
After you've done all you care to in Word's Internet Assistant, it's time to open your Web document in the FrontPage Editor to add any advanced FrontPage formatting or to perform final testing before publishing. All you need to do is open the document
in FrontPage, just as you would any other HTML document.
The document appears in FrontPage (see Figure 18.22), ready for editing and enhancement.
Figure 18.22. Opening your new document in the FrontPage Editor.
If you need further information about Internet Assistant, here are two great starting points:
Figure 18.23. Microsoft's online tutorial for Word's Internet Assistant.
Of the Office applications that can generate Web content through an Internet Assistant, Word is far and away the most useful. In particular, you might find Word a great place to start when you want to Web-publish content that already exists in Word
format. But don't get the idea that your Word documents can appear on the Web exactly as they appear on your screen. HTML is not a word processing format, and formatting compromises must be made in the translation from Word to Web.
If you want your guests to see your Word document exactly as it was originally formatted, you might consider forgoing any conversion to HTML and instead offer the original Word file for downloading. You can also provide your visitors with Microsoft's
free Word viewer, so even those who don't have Word can still see your document after downloading it.