Occasionally, you may experience mysterious problems. Examples are no response to buttons or icons, pages failing to load, inappropriate error messages and the like. In the Internet Explorer browser, try these steps:
Other browsers will have similar tools. I have two sites, one that is three years old and this site begun in July, 2009. I have not needed to use these steps for many months now. My theory is once you get tuned up with OL, those mysterious problems quit occurring.
Next, for log-in anomalies, try cleaning up your network passwords. On your Vista/7 machine:
It's important enough to repeat it here. DO NOT copy and paste formatted Word text to your web pages. It will freeze a browser and may even permanently destroy a page. Your browser might also rebel and prevent any subsequent changes to a page. If you use Word to create site content, DO NO FORMATTING of any kind. Even then, paste it to your test page first, save it and view it. If it kills the test page, no harm is done.
Don't take the home page rules lightly.
Getting Your OL Website Published
With Office Live Small Business, your site is published and live on the internet from the moment you sign up. It's what they mean by Office LIVE. In both the Page Editor and the Site Designer, when you click on Save, your changes go live at that moment. Note that there is no FTP server with OL. Even if you are using a third-party designer, Office Live uses its own uploading system.
Tip: If you wish to hide unfinished pages, open Page Properties for each page and uncheck the box for “Show this page in the Navigation bar.” One exception: do not do this for your Home page. Instead, get something decent on it. Insert a Weather module or anything. Don't worry about visitors seeing your site at this stage anyway. It is highly unlikely that anyone will find it right now. You will soon be worrying about that.
Starting a Second Website
If you add a domain name to your existing OL account, that domain name will point to the current website. If you wish to create a second website, you must sign up for a second OL account using a different WLID. If you have added the domain name to your existing account, you will need to contact OL Support. They will assist and provide instructions to release the domain name for use with another website.
Miscellaneous Problems
Pages Freezing and Failing to Load: This seems to be a problem that primarily afflicts new site accounts. I have experienced them with this site. After a week or two, however, I don't seem to experience these problems anymore. For freezes after clicking on Save, just wait them out. DO NOT CLOSE YOUR BROWSER. For failures to load, I would click out and retry. Usually the page would load on the first or second retry. Be sure you have followed the All Purpose Remedies above.
If You Change Your Primary Domain Name: Some parts of your website, particularly footer links, internal links and email addresses, may no longer function correctly. You will need to rebuild the links under the new domain name.
Link Contagion: You insert a Hyperlink onto a page. Without warning, you notice that the text around it, spaces and all is underlined and has become part of the link. My friend Sue at Office Live Design Tips suggests highlighting all of the offending text, click on the Hyperlink tool » [Remove Link] button. If this is not successful, you may have to do wide excision of text around the problem to get rid of it. To prevent the problem, type all of your text first, then go back and carefully insert the links later. Don't insert them as you go. If you add links to a bulleted list or at the end of a line, type two spaces after the text, then go back and insert the link. The spaces will isolate it from other text.
Page Content Moves Around in Different Browsers: You probably have your page width set to 100%. As the browser size changes, the page content shifts around. Go to the Site Designer tab and open the Options dialog. Change the setting to 780 or 980px.
Copying and Pasting Produces Code: This is caused by closing the source page editor and moving to the target page using the Page Manager index. When copying content from one page to another, do not close the source page's Page Editor screen. Instead, navigate to the target page using the Web Pages drop down list up there next to Save.
Image Gallery Unwieldy: There is no option to organize images into folders. Try using compound file names, e.g. cars_ford.jpg, cars_honda.jpg, etc. This will cause related items to be grouped together.
Photos are distorted: Even though it is possible, never resize a photo in the OL Page Editor. Always size your images in a photo editor before uploading them to the Image Gallery. Then place them on the page as is. Also, when uploading photos, remove the check mark from the "Optimize Image" box.
Save Failures: While editing, if you click on Save but nothing happens, you may have a selected object, table, module or image, and scrolled it up past the Save button. Click out of the object to un-select it and try again.
Table Cell Contents Won't Line Up: Every table begins life with spaces or text in each cell. When you create a new table, the first chore is to clean it. Remove all of the text and spaces before inserting any content. If you leave a space, it can be a bugger to get rid of later. Different cells may also have different default justifications.
Things Not to Worry About
There are things you should fret about with a website, like are you getting any visitors or is your content using correct grammar with the words spelled correctly. Here are some of the things you don't need to worry about:
WWW Dot: No, it does not appear in the address line. Yes, you can type it in the address line or a search box and find your site. Yes, you can use it on your business cards.
The Home Page Address is "Default:" That's true and that's how it must be.