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Scott Spanbauer

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How to Post Your Pages

Click here to view full-size image.Most of us are pretty comfortable with the process of downloading files. But with Web publishing, the files are going in the other direction: They're being uploaded to a Web-hosting service's computer. Many Internet service providers support an established way of moving these files between your computer and their servers, called the file transport protocol, known more familiarly as FTP. Because FTP is a standard method of moving files around the Internet, many programs, including the Internet Explorer and Mozilla browsers, support it.

To use FTP, you need to know the addresses of the folders your account is allowed to write to on the remote server, and the correct user name and password. Your ISP probably sent this information to you when you signed up--but if it didn't, or if you can't find the information, call the company's tech support line and ask for it.

To publish a page in Composer, first save the file and then click the Publish button to open the Publish Page dialog box. Click the Settings tab; fill in the blank lines for publishing address, HTTP address, and log-in information; and click Publish. If the information you supplied is correct, Composer will then upload the Web page as well as any embedded files to the Web server.

Publishing Related Files

Though Composer does a good job of uploading images embedded in your Web pages, it doesn't by default upload the external files and Web pages that your pages link to. To get these files posted, you can use a third-party FTP program such as Ipswitch's WS_FTP LE (free for personal use, $40 for the commercial Pro 8 version; at the site you can register for the download). Or just use Internet Explorer. Type your FTP address and log-in information in IE's address bar using this format:

ftp://username:password@myisp.com/mywebfolder

Replace username with your log-in name, password with your password, and myisp.com/mywebfolder with the location of your upload directory on the server. This is almost the same publishing address you entered into Composer, with 'username:password@' inserted just after 'ftp://'. Press Enter to make the connection. If the information is correct, you should be able to drag and drop files from your local machine into your folder on the server.

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