Tips and troubleshooting for sending a publication page as an e-mail message

You need to set up Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Outlook Express (version 5.x or 6.0) as your default e-mail program before you can use the Send This Page as Message and E-Mail Preview commands (File menu, Send E-Mail submenu) and the Send This Page as Message button (Standard toolbar).

To set up Outlook 2003 as your default e-mail program

1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Other tab.
3. Under General, select the Make Outlook the default program for E-mail, Contacts, and Calendar check box.

Troubleshooting    If Outlook 2003 is set as your default e-mail client, and the Send This Page as Message command still does not appear, you may need to automatically repair your Microsoft Office programs. For more information about repairing Office programs, click Automatically repair Office programs in the See Also section, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

To set up Outlook Express (version 5.x or 6.0) as your default e-mail program

1. Start Outlook Express.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the General tab.
3. Under Default Messaging Program, next to This application is NOT the default Mail handler, click Make Default.

For information about sending a a single page publication by using Microsoft Outlook 2002 as your default e-mail program, click the Microsoft Knowledge Base article The Send This Page as Message command is not available when you click Send E-mail on the File menu in Publisher 2003 in the See Also section of this article.

If you installed Publisher by itself (not as part of an Office suite of applications), activate Outlook before you try to send a page as an e-mail message.

Troubleshooting    If you do not activate Outlook before you attempt to send a page as an e-mail message, the Outlook Activation dialog box appears when you click Send This Page as Message. After you activate Outlook, Publisher displays an error message stating that there is a problem with your connection and that the envelope (message header) isn't open. Click OK and then click Send This Page as Message again. The message header should appear.

In certain situations, text in a publication is converted to one or more JPEG images when you preview the publication and send it in e-mail. This may change the appearance of the text, increase the file size and download time of your e-mail message, and prevent recipients from being able to copy the text from the message and paste it into another program or message.

To ensure that your text will be exported as text instead of an image:

• Use only fonts that are optimized for display on the Web (for a list of Web fonts, click a link in the See Also section of this article).
• Do not use a background fill or graphic for the page.
• Do not use a fill color in text boxes or tables (use a white fill or no fill).
• Remove any line borders on text boxes or tables.

Instead, you can draw lines around a text box or table by using the AutoShape tool to simulate a line border.

• Do not rotate text boxes or tables.
• Keep text boxes or tables apart, so that they don't overlap or touch.
• Do not insert inline objects into text boxes or tables.
• Resize any large text boxes so that they don't extend into the scratch area.
• Do not create columns within text boxes (use tables or multiple text boxes instead).
• Do not use cell diagonals in tables.

If any one text box in a chain of connected text boxes does not follow the guidelines above, the entire chain is exported as a JPEG image (or as multiple JPEG images).

 Notes 

• All form controls on the page will be converted into an image, and recipients will not be able to use them as form controls in the e-mail message that they receive.
• If you use a background fill or graphic, your text will be turned into an image. Be sure to use contrasting colors for the text and background, so that the text does not look blurry when you preview or send the e-mail message.
• If you apply a line border to a text box or table that contains colored text, the text will be turned into an image, and the color of the text may get a little darker.

Depending on how your text or table is positioned on the page, nearby objects may shift position slightly. You can usually fix this issue by doing one or both of the following:

• Extend the bottom edge of the text box so that it is further away from the bottom of the last line of text in the text box.
• Move objects that are close to the text box further away from it.

 Note   You can also send the entire publication page as a single JPEG image.

If any of your e-mail recipients are using AOL (especially older versions), using older versions of other e-mail programs, or viewing Web-based e-mail through nonmainstream or older browsers, they may see thin white vertical or horizontal gaps in the body of the e-mail message. These gaps may widen each time the message is replied to or forwarded. E-mail messages without gaps may also develop gaps if the message is replied to or forwarded.

To avoid gaps in your e-mail message, you can send the entire publication page as a single JPEG image.

If a large file size and a longer download time for the message are not a concern for you or your recipients, you can send the entire page as a single JPEG image.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Web tab.
2. Under E-Mail options, select the Send entire publication page as a single JPEG image check box.
3. On the File menu, point to Send E-Mail, and click Send This Page as Message.
4. Click OK.
5. In the message header, in the To and Cc fields, type or select e-mail addresses for the recipients.
6. In the Subject field, add a title for the e-mail message.
7. On the toolbar above the message header, choose any other options you want.
8. Click Send.

When you send the current page as an e-mail message, the message is sent in HTML (HTML: The standard markup language used for documents on the World Wide Web. HTML uses tags to indicate how Web browsers should display page elements such as text and graphics and how to respond to user actions.) format. Text flow and the placement of line breaks may be displayed differently in the e-mail message than in Publisher. For example, three lines of text in a text box may appear as two or four lines of text in the e-mail message. To preview the message and verify the layout before you send it, you can do either of the following:

• On the File menu, point to Send E-Mail, and then click E-Mail Preview. The message is displayed in your default browser. If possible, it's best to preview your message in the browser that you expect your recipients will use.
• Send the message to yourself first to verify the size of the file and the final formatting.

If necessary, make any changes to text or graphics in your publication page before you send the page to a recipient. If text expands in the preview and causes unexpected gaps between objects on your page, you can make the text box bigger and move nearby objects further away from the text.

If your page contains a hyperlink in an inline object (inline object: A picture or other object placed within a line of text that retains its place next to adjacent text when text is added or deleted. An inline object can move both horizontally and vertically with adjacent text, or just vertically.), such as a table or text box that has inline positioning, the hyperlink is turned into an image when you preview or send a page as an e-mail message. When this happens, the recipient is not able to use the hyperlink in your message.

To retain a hyperlink so that it can be used by your e-mail recipients, make sure that the object that contains the hyperlink has an exact position.

How?

The following types of formatting are lost when you send a page in e-mail, so you may want to modify the design of your publication to avoid them:

• Animated GIF pictures    Animated GIFs lose their animation and become static images.
• Margins around text    Any margins that you set in text boxes are changed to zero.
• Tracking and scaling    Any special character spacing (Tools menu, Character Spacing command) is restored to normal.
• Certain font effects    Any text that is formatted as Outline, Shadow, Emboss, or Engrave loses that formatting.
• Underline styles    Any underline styles are converted to single underlines.
• Spacing of lines before or after paragraphs    Any precise horizontal rule spacing is lost. When you send a page in e-mail, the default spacing for horizontal rules is optimized for screen display.
• Line style for horizontal rules    Any horizontal rule styles are converted to single lines.