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HTML Export of limited use
Authored by: Han Solo on Jan 25, '05 09:18:01PM
Is it just me, or does exporting from Pages to HTML need a fair bit of work? As far as I can tell, after exporting a few of the templates to see what they would look like — well, they look very little like what they look like on the screen or printed page: multi-column layouts become (horizontally) page-filling < DIV >'s, right-aligned items are flush left, rectangular colored regions become oddly-shaped combinations of boxes, etc. I didn't actually upload any resulting files to check if the HTML and/or CSS validated, but I can say that I don't see Pages as even close to a poor-man's replacement for Claris HomePage — another product for which Apple should find a modern, OS X-based replacement. In fact, I'm not sure I see the point of HTML export at all in this version, as most people will probably be unhappily surprised by the output. (Not to mention probably not know what to do with the resulting files — yes, files. Check it out for yourself — think this will pass the "Mom test"? Doubtful.)

Perhaps Apple can hire a few CSS coding experts (take a look at the CSS Zen Garden, for example) and Pages 2.0 will become an acceptable basic web design app as well — there is no obvious reason why it couldn't fill this need for low(ish)-end users with no interest in or facility with (X)HTML, CSS, etc., yet who would love to use some well-designed templates to put together an attractive web site. They could even integrate it with .Mac as an additional enticement for people to sign up, thereby increasing revenue from that product as well.

C'mon Apple: think different...ly.

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HTML Export of limited use
Authored by: jctull on Jan 27, '05 01:39:21PM

I just tried an html export. You are right, pretty terrible. You would hope that they could render horizontal features in a document as tables or something. I end up with items that overlap, nonsensical progression of the original layout, etc. I suppose this would work for a plain text document.

As far as multiple files, there is no way around this if you have any images. You also need a css sheet for the file to read (maybe you can define the css in the html document, not sure about that). Certainly you are stuck with extra files for images. Not planning to replace NVu or Quanta anytime soon.



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