Troubleshoot Web pages

This can be caused by one of following:

• The destination may have been entered incorrectly     Make sure that the hyperlink destination is correct.
• The original destination may have moved to a different location     Use your Web browser to navigate to the destination to ensure that it still exists.

This can be caused by one of the following:

• The destination may have moved or may not exist any more     Verify the file exists by viewing the destination file with your Web browser if it is on the Internet, or with Microsoft Windows Explorer if it is on your hard drive or a network.
• The text you believe is a hyperlink only looks like a hyperlink     Select the text, and then click Insert Hyperlink to make sure the text is a hyperlink.
• You may not have access to the destination     If the destination file is on the Internet, make sure you have a connection to the Internet. If the destination is on a network, contact your network administrator to ensure you have access to the destination file.

The Hyperlink shortcut menu will not appear if the hyperlink display text contains a grammatical or spelling error and Microsoft Word is automatically checking for proofing errors. Text with spelling errors contains a red wavy underline; text with grammatical errors contains a green wavy underline.

After you accept or reject the proofing error, Word can display the Hyperlink shortcut menu. To do this, right-click the text that contains the underline, and then accept the suggested correction or click Ignore.

When you save a Web page to a Web server, all supporting files— such as bullets, background textures, and graphics— are by default stored in a separate folder. If you want to save supporting files in the same folder as your Web page, do the following:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the General tab.
2. Click Web Options, and then click the Files tab.
3. Under File names and locations, clear the Organize supporting files in a folder check box.

Note  Make sure when you move Web pages that you also move all supporting files and folders to the same location.

When you save a Web page, a backup copy is not automatically created. To save a copy of a Web page:

1. On the File menu, click Save As Web Page.
2. In the File name box, enter a new name for the file, and then click Save.

By default, when you save your file as a Web page, all supporting files— such as bullets, background textures, and graphics— are organized in a supporting folder. The name of the supporting folder is the name of the Web page plus an underscore (_), a period (.), or a hyphen (-), and the word "files." For some language versions of Office, the word "files" is translated. For example, suppose you use the Dutch language version of Office to save a file named Page1 as a Web page. The default name of the supporting folder would be Page1_bestanden.

Note  If you save your Web page with a short file name (maximum of eight characters, plus a three-character file extension) by clearing the Use long file names whenever possible check box in the Web Options dialog box, the supporting folder is the name of the Web page without the word "files."

If the HTML source of a Web page appears to be different after you open a Web page and save it, here are some possible reasons:

• If the former HTML tags in your file differed from standard HTML tags— for instance, if the tags were placed in a nonstandard order or used lowercase letters— Microsoft Word might have changed the tags to fit HTML standards when you closed the file. These changes generally won't affect the way that Word displays your Web page.
• Word retains most HTML tags, even if the action a particular tag represents is not available in the Web page authoring environment.

When you edit a Web document when using a browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office checks whether Microsoft Word is registered as the default editor. If another program is registered as the default editor, Office displays a message asking whether you want to restore Word as your default editor. If you don't want Office to check your default editor, do the following:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the General tab.
2. Click Web Options, and then click the Files tab.
3. Under Default editor, clear the Check if Office is the default editor for Web pages created in Office check box.
4. Clear the Check if Word is the default editor for all other Web pages check box.

Microsoft Word makes some commands unavailable when you open a Web page, create a new document based on a Web page template, choose to disable features not supported by Word 97, or save your document as a Word 6.0/95 document. The unavailable commands are not supported by the application you are creating the document for. For example, underline color is not available when you create Web pages, documents for Word 97, or documents for Word 6.0/95.

When you open an HTML or Single File Web Page file from the Open dialog box on the File menu, the file opens in the program the file was created in. For example, if you attempt to open an HTML format file in Microsoft PowerPoint that was created in Word, the file opens in Word instead. To open an HTML file in PowerPoint that was created in another Microsoft Office program, right-click the file in the Open dialog box, click Open With, and then click Microsoft PowerPoint on the shortcut menu.

Note  For best results when you edit an HTML or MHTML file, open it in the program the file was created in.

If you use a long file name to save your Web page to a file server, site visitors running Microsoft Windows 3.1 won't be able to find or open your Web page, because Windows 3.1 recognizes and supports only short file names (maximum of eight characters, plus a three-character file extension). To always save files with short file names, do the following:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the General tab, and then click Web Options.
3. Click the Files tab.
4. Under File names and locations, clear the Use long file names whenever possible check box.

If you see angle brackets and tags, such as <HTML>, <HEAD>, and <P>, instead of the content of your Web page, one of the following might be true:

• You might be viewing HTML tags in the Microsoft Script Editor. You might have entered this view by clicking HTML Source on the View menu. To return to viewing your content in Microsoft Word, in the Microsoft Script Editor, click Exit on the File menu.
• You might have opened a file that uses a Web page format but doesn't have one of the following file name extensions: .html, .htm, .htx, .asp, .otm, .mht, or .mhtml. Or you might be viewing the HTML source for this file instead of the browser's display of the content. To view Web page content, click Options on the Tools menu, and then click the General tab. Select the Confirm conversion at Open check box. Close the file, and then reopen it in Word. In the Convert File dialog box, select HTML Document.

If a Web page is encoded for a different language, Microsoft Word tries to determine the language. If Word displays the wrong characters for that language when you open the page in a browser, you can select the language that you think the page is encoded in. Some languages have more than one encoding, so try each encoding until you can read the text.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the General tab.
2. Click the Web Options button, and then click the Encoding tab.
3. Under Reload the current document as, select the language you think the page is encoded in.

Unexpected text characters might appear on a Web page for the following reasons:

• The page is encoded for a different language, and Microsoft Word cannot automatically determine the language. On the Tools menu, click Options, click the General tab, and then click Web Options. Click the Encoding tab. In the Reload the current document as box, select the language you think the page is encoded in. Some languages have more than one encoding, so try each encoding until you can read the text.
• The page is encoded for a language your system doesn't support.

When you save a document as a Web page, Microsoft Word displays the page as it will appear in a Web browser by converting the content and formatting to HTML. Formatting and other items that aren't supported by HTML either are converted to the closest formatting or feature in HTML or are removed from the file.

You must have access to the Internet, either through a modem or through a network connection that provides Internet access.

• If you're using a modem to gain access to the Internet, check your modem connection. Most external modems have lights that show when they're sending or receiving signals. Consult your modem's documentation for more information.
• If you connect to the Internet through an Internet service provider, you may need to log on to the service again. You may also want to test other Internet connections from the same service provider.
• If you're gaining access to the Internet through your company's or organization's network, there could be network problems or Internet connection problems. If the problem persists, see your network administrator.

• If you move or copy your Web page without moving the supporting files, or if you rename your graphics, any links to supporting files— such as bullets, background textures, and graphics— may be broken. To automatically update links when you save your Web page in Microsoft Word, on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the General tab. Click Web Options, and then click the Files tab. Under File names and locations, select the Update links on save check box.

• Check your browser settings, or consider testing in a different browser. Custom options can be set in browsers, such as the default text and background colors and whether or not graphics are displayed.

• If you link a graphic to a Web page, and the graphic format isn't supported by your browser, your graphics won't be visible. Make sure that the linked picture is in a graphic format that is compatible with your browser. The .jpg and .gif graphic formats are compatible with most browsers.

• If you inserted a picture     When you create a Web page with inserted pictures, Word creates copies of your picture files to use for editing. If your picture is in GIF, JPEG or PNG format, you can avoid extra picture files by linking to the picture instead of inserting it.

• If you edited a linked picture in Microsoft Word     When you edit a linked picture within Word, the picture file is copied to your supporting files folder. To avoid this, always edit linked pictures in a graphics program.

• If you want to change an inserted picture to a linked picture     To create a linked picture, first delete the inserted picture from the document. On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click From File. Locate and open the folder that contains the picture you want. Click the picture you want to insert. Click the arrow to the right of the Insert button. Click Link to File.

Because Microsoft Word provides formatting options that most Web browsers do not support, some text and graphics may look different when you view them on a Web page. To use only formatting options supported by Web browsers, you can create a Web page from scratch or save your document as a Web page. When creating documents for the Web, you can use Web layout view to ensure that your graphics look the way you want them to when they are viewed as Web pages in a Web browser.

If you have graphics with text wrapping     Graphics with certain kinds of text wrapping will change position when you save your document as a Web page.

If you need precise alignment of floating graphics and text     Use tables if your document requires precise alignment of text and graphics.

When you save your document as a Web page, all graphics and objects— including pictures, AutoShapes, WordArt, text boxes, callouts, Equation Editor objects, Organization Chart objects, and Graph objects— are saved in GIF, JPEG, or PNG format so that they can be viewed in a Web browser.

When you re-open the Web page in Microsoft Word, the graphics and objects you see are in their original formats so that you can edit them as you normally do.