Working with FrontPage

Home | Previous | TOC | Next

About Using Graphics

You can use graphics on your Web pages to provide information, artwork, theme elements, or a company logo. In addition to being decorative, graphics can be useful, for items such as navigational buttons. With Microsoft FrontPage, there are a variety of ways to lay out the graphics on your web pages.

Types and formats of graphics

The formats that are generally used for Web pages are GIF and JPEG.

	Graphics in GIF format can contain up to 256 colors. One useful aspect of GIF graphics is that you can select one color to be transparent.
	The JPEG format is commonly used for photo-realistic graphics containing thousands or millions of colors. JPEG graphics are useful because you can control the file compression by changing the graphic quality. The lower you set the quality, the higher the file compression will be. As a result, the file size is decreased.

You can also add graphics with the following file formats:

	BMP (Windows and OS/2) The native bitmap format for the Microsoft Windows environment. A picture made from a series of small dots, and supports images up to 24 bits.
	TIFF Tagged Image File Format. A high-resolution, tag-based file format. Used for the universal interchange of digital graphics.
	TGA Truevision Targa Graphics Adaptor file format. Supports 1- to 32-bit images and professional features like an alpha (mask) channel, gamma settings, and a built-in thumbnail image.
	RAS Raster format. Lightly compressed, and supports up to 36-bit images.
	EPS Encapsulated PostScript file format. An extension of the Post Graphic file format that nables PostScript graphics files to be incorporated into other documents.
	PNG The Portable Network Graphics format is an alternative to GIF that supports transparency for graphics containing thousands or millions of colors. However, some Web browsers cannot display PNG graphics without a special plug-in.
	WMF Microsoft Windows Metafile format. Supports bitmapped, vector, and Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) data.

When you add a graphic other than a GIF or JPEG to a page and then save it, Microsoft FrontPage automatically converts the graphic to a GIF if it has 8 bits of color or less, or to a JPEG if it has more than 8 bits of color.

Setting the Properties of GIF and JPEGs

For a GIF, you can specify whether to allow a transparent color and whether the graphic is interlaced (that is, whether the graphic is displayed with increasing detail as it is downloaded).

For a JPEG, you can specify the quality and number of progressive passes. The lower the quality you set, the more the graphic will be compressed and the smaller its file size will be. The number of progressive passes refers to the number of passes that a Web browser makes in order to resolve a graphic as it downloads.

You can set these properties at the same time you save the web page and its graphics.

Animated GIFs and Videos

You can add animated GIFs and videos to your Web pages. An animated GIF, which is a sequential display of GIF graphics, can be created in a graphics program, and you can find animated GIFs on the World Wide Web.

You can add any videos to your page that can be played by the Windows Media Player, such as videos in AVI format. You can also set options for video playback, such as playing the video once when the page is first loaded; looping the video and playing it endlessly; or playing the video when the mouse is positioned over it. The animation in this example plays once when the page is opened.