Resizing a graphic changes attribute values for the HTML tag (tag: A text string used in HTML to identify a page element's type, format, and appearance. Many elements have start and end tags that define where the element starts and stops.) that tells a Web browser how to display the graphic; the actual graphic file is not changed. If you only resize the graphic, it will be displayed in a smaller area on a site visitor's screen, but its file size and the download time are unchanged.

To decrease the file size of a graphic and its download time, you will need to resample the graphic after resizing it.

Resampling a graphic changes its pixel (pixel: A single unit of measurement that your computer's display hardware uses to paint images on your screen. These units, which often appear as tiny dots, compose the pictures displayed by your screen.) size to match its current display size. When you resample the graphic after resizing it, the file size is reduced to match the smaller size.

As you lower the quality setting, file compression increases and file size decreases.

If you have a high-resolution (resolution: The fineness of detail in an image or text produced by a monitor or printer.) graphic, make a copy of the graphic, open it in a graphics program, and then make modifications to lower the resolution. You can then reinsert the graphic in your Web page in its lower resolution format.

In a graphics program, create a low-resolution version of a graphic. To do this, open your file in a graphics editing program and reduce the color depth (number of colors) in the graphic. The fewer colors you specify for the low-resolution version of the graphic, the faster it will be displayed in a Web browser. Because the low-resolution graphic is intended as a placeholder for the high-resolution graphic, you should not change the height or width of the graphic.

Then, set Microsoft FrontPage to display this low-resolution version of your graphic while the original is being downloaded. This gives the site visitor something to look at while the page is loading.

A thumbnail is a small version of the graphic that downloads quickly. By looking at a thumbnail, site visitors can determine whether they want to download the full-size version of the graphic. Use the AutoThumbnail feature, which automatically creates a thumbnail with a hyperlink (hyperlink: Colored and underlined text or a graphic that you click to go to a file, a location in a file, a Web page on the World Wide Web, or a Web page on an intranet. Hyperlinks can also go to newsgroups and to Gopher, Telnet, and FTP sites.) to the original, larger sized graphic.

Alternative text (alternative text: Used by Web browsers to display text during image downloads for users who have graphics turned off and for users who rely on screen-reading software to convert graphics on the screen to spoken words.) (ALT text) is displayed in place of a graphic while it is downloading and lets site visitors know what they are waiting to see.