LiveWorld Transcripts

IDG Books presents

Sue Plumley
Author of "Microsoft Publisher 2000 Bible"

August 18, 1999

Author of "Microsoft Publisher 2000 Bible," Sue Plumley discusses her hot book and answers tons of questions about creating web sites.

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IDGBooks: Welcome to the IDG Books Author Chat Series. Tonight we're chatting with Sue Plumley, author of "Microsoft(r) Publisher 2000 Bible" presented by IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. and Talk City(tm). Sue Plumley is a partner in Humble Opinions, a consulting firm in southern West Virginia. Sue works with her husband, Carlos, to provide software training, computer consulting, and network installation and maintenance to businesses and corporations. Sue's degree is in art education. She worked for four years as a professional typesetter and graphic artist, and has been writing books since 1992. Sue has written more than 35 books on operating systems, Microsoft Office products, Lotus products, Windows NT networking, and network administration. In addition, Sue has co-written an additional 35 books about various software products and procedures. Please join me in welcoming Sue Plumley!

CCCola: Sue, it's a pleasure having you here in Talk City, welcome!

Sue Plumley: Thank You! Glad to be here!

CCCola: To start with, we would love to hear what inspired you to write a Computer Book!

Sue Plumley: I always wanted to write.but really wanted to write fiction. Problem is, I know more about computers than fiction!

Romalove: Do you need a working knowledge of HTML to use Publisher 2000? I am a novice, obviously. <laughs>

Sue Plumley: No, not at all. Publisher automatically transfers your pages to HTML, in the background.

CCCola: Who was this book written for? Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced users?

Sue Plumley: All three. It starts with the simplest procedures and features, and then works toward more difficult procedures.

CCCaveat: What are some of the lesser-known uses for Publisher 2000?

Sue Plumley: Hard question. I really think gathering clips - art, video, music, etc - from the Net is a wonderful feature. Plus, creating Web pages and entire sites with the help of a wizard is a wonderful feature. Don't forget you can make cards, posters, and banners, as well.

Hopefloats: When I create a web page in Publisher 98 and convert it to HTML, it automatically renames the pictures to 1.gif; 2.gif etc. Is there a setting somewhere that I can make it retain the original name and type of picture? (i.e. name.jpg?) It is very hard to update anything when it changes the picture names, without almost redoing the entire site.

Sue Plumley: Not as far as I know. But you're so right, it's an awful feature.

Hopefloats: So, 2000 doesn't fix that ?

Sue Plumley: No, it doesn't. I did ask the MS support team for beta about it but they seemed to think it was normal for it to not work. <sigh>

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