How the CapCollege 114/115 lab web is set up

General Format

Content is separated (into a content directory) so it can by formatted differently for the web or print. 

Web pages include content files along with a banner. The web banner includes links of "incBannerCorner.htm". A separate banner is used for printing. The format of a web page is controlled by a style sheet that sets the background (in FrontPage style setting of body/border/shading.

Web Printing of Manual

Printing is done through an ActiveX component (html has no facility to control printing) by including the page "inc printing.htm" into the top of the web page to be printed. The button on this page will print the page with control over paging and page numbering. The web page to be printed must not be in a frame or system may hange.

The format of the printed page is controlled by the style sheet "Print.css". This removes underlines in hyperlinks, sets background to white, changes some of the title fonts.

Some FrontPage techniques that are used extensively

• Insert.Component.IncludePage to include other html pages (a FrontPage Extension specific capability)
• Format.StyleSheetLinks to add a ".css" style sheet
• Tables with border.size=0  for general positioning (such as equations, equation numbering)
• Paragraph.Spacing.Before=0 or Paragraph.Spacing.After=0 to control excess line spaces

Equations

Equations are problematic as copying the results of equation editor in Word to the clipboard and pasting this into FrontPage generates something that looks ok in a web browser but prints very poorly.

The Equation Editor produces equations as a vector format. The clipboard copies maintaining the vector format. Pasting to FrontPage rasterizes this to a Gif and also includes the vector information. It is not clear if the vector information is now used anymore.

Design Science (producers of Equation Editor and MathType) have an overview page on web equations. Some work arounds I worked with are:

• Copy the clipboard contents to CorelDraw and then use CorelDraw to produce a Gif (it has control over resolution and sizing)
• JPegs fair much better when being resized and printed. Only disadvantages seems to be some artifacts and no transparent backgrounds.
• Let Word2000 produce the web page. Word using XML with hidden directory to produce the web page. Equations here print with high quality.
• MathType (pay version of Equation Editor) allows finer control of Gifs generated. Equation Editor is set to style bold variables, symbols and numbers and use 18pt as full size (factory setting the other sizes). Equation then are saved as a Gif at 300dpi with anti-aliasing. The Gif is reduced in size in FrontPage. Browser will show a poor image but the print will be quite good.
• OfficeXP with the new FrontPage and Word may be of help.

Databases

Access2000 database with Active Server pages is used to interface student web pages to data.

Student data is kept on a lab web server for ease of access and security. The web services of data is limited to when the lab is running.