How to Make HTML CDs with Microsoft® FrontPage® version 2002

Why publish HTML CDs using FrontPage, what you need to know, and how to do it

Published: November 2001

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Table of Contents

Why HTML CDs Make Sense

The Right Format

What You Need to Know

HTML on CD-ROM Basics

How to Make FrontPage-based CDs

The 3 Steps to Complete Your CD Project

Start with the End in View

Planning Content Format and Layout

Publishing Your Web site Locally with FrontPage

Complete the CD Package and Create a CDR

Summary

More Information

Microsoft Resources

3rd Party Resources

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Overview

There are a number of excellent business reasons to develop CD-ROMs in HTML format. First, it is always important to back up your Web site work and CDs are a cost-effective way to do it. Other uses ideal for HTML CDs include leveraging your existing Web site content to make low-cost multimedia presentations, training materials, "CD Business Cards" or other promotional packages. Not only will all of these HTML CD packages work off-line (no Internet connection), but via links referencing your Web site, these CDs can work with your dynamic Web site to keep online customers up to date on your latest offers and services.

And you can develop HTML CDs with the very same software tool you are already using for your Web site- Microsoft® FrontPage® version 2002. However, creating an HTML CD is different than building a Web site. The good news is- FrontPage can help you quickly work through these differences.

This white paper gives an overview of why it makes sense to publish HTML CDs using Microsoft FrontPage version 2002, what you need to know, and how to do it (much of the following information can also be used to make HTML CDs using earlier versions of FrontPage). This paper assumes that the reader has at least Advanced Beginner to Intermediate skills using FrontPage in a Microsoft Windows®-based PC environment and understands how to author a basic Web site.

Why HTML CDs Make Sense

HTML CDs make sense for your business because they can provide another tool to improve your customer experience. Using FrontPage 2002 to develop these CDs has all the advantages it did for developing your FrontPage-based Web site as well as features that will help with the special requirements of making HTML CDs.

But, what can HTML CDs do for you?

Besides providing your business with a presence on the Internet, Web sites offer a wide variety of opportunities in terms of communication within your organization, customer services, sales tools, and even direct sales via e-commerce technology. But, there are some limitations to a Web site such as bandwidth restrictions that limit file sizes of multimedia presentations or training materials. In addition, there are times when a Web site just doesn't work as in disconnected scenarios where your co-workers, sales representatives, and customers may not be connected or have a very slow Internet connection. With HTML CDs, you can reach a wider audience.

And in a connected scenario, HTML CDs can greatly enhance your Web site content, by delivering high bandwidth content from the end-user's CD player in conjunction with browsing your site. And new CD content developed with FrontPage including the HTML, graphics and other files are all compatible with your Web site, so this work can easily be repurposed for online use thus improving ROI.

The Right Format

There are many reasons to choose HTML as the right format for developing CDs. Some of them are listed below:

• HTML CDs are easy to author using FrontPage 2002.
• HTML CDs can use content already created for your Web site.
• An HTML CD can contain a great deal of information including high bandwidth files such as audio/video clips, animations, and presentations like those made in Microsoft PowerPoint® presentation graphics program.
• Because HTML CDs can handle high bandwidth files, you can offer higher quality multimedia files such as larger graphics or images, etc.
• HTML CDs can be read by a very wide audience (anyone with a Web browser).

What You Need to Know

With FrontPage version 2002, you have the tools to create outstanding HTML content for your CD package, but there are a few basics you need to be aware of from the beginning.

HTML on CD-ROM Basics

To start, besides having a great HTML authoring program such as FrontPage to develop the content, you will need a CD writer, CD writer software, and CDR media (blank writeable CDs) to make HTML CD-ROMs.

Depending on what your project involves and how many CDs you plan to distribute, there are other options to consider including whether you duplicate and label the CDs yourself, need to out-source label printing, have CDs pressed from the original master you've made, etc. Please see 3rd Party Resources at the end of this paper for more information to help you make these choices.

Next, you need to know that HTML on CD has special requirements. Some things need to be done differently on CD than when building a Web site that is designed to run on a Web server using the TCPIP Internet protocol.

A CD is Not a Web Server and Other Limitations

The most important limitation to keep in mind is that a CD is not a Web server. This means HTML content features that need Web server support will not run from your CD and need to be left out. There are many ways to overcome this limitation including exceptions, software/utilities, and strategies such as using an install program to move all or part of your HTML CD content to the user's hard drive. These workarounds provide ways to use various features such as scripts/applets, full text search, interactive databases, etc. on your CD, but further discussion of them is quite involved and outside of the scope of this paper.

Finally, in addition to the server limitation, whether you are converting existing Web site content or developing new content for an HTML CD, there are a number of other key issues involving Hyperlink format, filenames and layout to consider. The next section discusses these and provides hands on information about how FrontPage helps with what to do and what not to.

How to Make FrontPage-based CDs

The 3 Steps to Complete Your CD Project

There are 3 steps to making an HTML CD with several sub-steps at each stage of the process. These are listed below:

Step 1: Assemble Your Content

·         Author/assemble your HTML content using FrontPage (including document, graphic, multimedia [video, sound, etc.], presentation and program files).

·         Scan your content for viruses.

·         Create a "burn" directory on your local hard drive.

Step 2: Publish It Locally Using FrontPage

·         Publish to the burn directory on your local hard drive using FrontPage.

·        Test your content (link check, formatting, etc.).

Step 3: Complete and Write Your CD Package

·         Do a final virus scan of the burn directory.

·      Create the CDR (often referred to as writing or "burning" a CD).

·      Test the finished CDR.

CDRs come in basically 3 sizes. Standard CDRs provide 650-700 MB of space for your content. Unless you have many large files such as video clips or presentations, you may want to consider Mini, 180 MB, or Business Card CDRs. Business Card sized CDRs, measure 3-3/16" x 2-3/8", hold about 5 minutes of audio or music, or up to 50MB of data. Both Mini and Business Card CDRs fit in the small center depression of CD player trays. This makes them well suited for shorter presentations, company electronic catalogs, e-brochures, and other promos.

Once you've decided on how much CD space you will have to work with, you need to assemble your content.

CD Formats and 8.3 Filenaming

When assembling your content, realize your filenames need to be compatible with the CD format. There are several different CD formats. The standard CD format is ISO 9660 which restricts filenames to "8.3" (names that have no more than 8 characters separated by a period then followed by no more than 3 characters). Other formats include the Joliet CD format which allows for filenames up to 64 characters in length. However, not all computers can read extended filenames on CDs, so it's best to use the 8.3 file naming convention for all the files and folders you plan to put on your HTML CD.

If you are building all new content, this really isn't a great inconvenience. But, if you're leveraging existing HTML content, changing filenames without FrontPage 2002 means renaming, re-linking and a lot of extra testing.

Fortunately, with its hyperlink management features, FrontPage 2002 can help you quickly rename files to the 8.3 convention and then update and check all your links (see FrontPage 2002 Help for information about hyperlink management). This is another good reason to use FrontPage to publish your content to your burn directory because you can do this work to the content in the burn directory as a last step and thus help cut down on duplication of testing.

Hyperlinks and Relative Paths

Whether you are working with existing HTML content or developing it from scratch, there's another issue regarding hyperlinks that needs to be addressed. HTML pages on a CD may be at any position in a user's file system. This means all your HTML links must use relative URLs. Relative URLs contain only a partial path and filename. When the files are written to a CDR, these hyperlinks will continue to work as long as the relative positions of the pages remain unchanged.

For example, the relative URL for a hyperlink in the file "Content/Products.htm" pointing to a page named "Apple.htm" in a folder named "Food" where both Content/ and Food/ folders are at the root level of the CD, will be as follows-
". . /Food/Apple.htm" (notice that there is no "http://" or "servername/" in the relative URL).

Here again, FrontPage 2002 makes the whole process easier because it creates relative URLs by default when you select another file to link to in the FrontPage Insert Hyperlink dialog.

Navigation

While you must use relative links to navigate within HTML CD content, you may want other links on your CD to be absolute. For example, a "What's New" link on the CD could point to "http://www.YourWebSite.com/whatsnew.htm" for information that will be more current than what is on the CD. It is important when using absolute links to online locations to let you users know these links take them off the CD and require they be connected to the Internet to work.

You can also provide additional navigation of your content by the way you lay out the files and directory folders on the CD. CD users will often initially browse the contents using Windows File Explorer, not a Web browser (if the CD doesn't AutoRun, all your users will first navigate your content this way). If your directory folders have understandable, intuitive names such as "docs" for documents, "promos" for promotional content and so on, your CD will be all the more usable.

Consequently, the home page of your CD should be the only HTML file at the root level. This will help users quickly find and open the correct HTML file with their Web browser. This home page should be named "index.htm".

The only other files at the root level should be the readme.txt and setup files like autorun.inf (see example pictured below).

 

Publishing Your Web site Locally with FrontPage

After assembling your content and creating the “burn” directory on your local hard drive, it’s time to publish to it. To publish locally using FrontPage follow these steps-

To use Microsoft FrontPage to publish your Web site/content to a local “burn” directory, open the Web/HTML content in FrontPage and do the following:

1. On the File menu, click Publish Web.
   

2. In the Publish Destination dialog box, do one of the following:

   ·       Type the path - for example C:\CDburn - to the folder on your file system.

   ·       Click Browse to locate the folder.

         Note: If you have previously chosen a publish destination for this web content, the Publish Destination dialog box will not appear. Proceed to step 4.
   
   

3. Click OK.
   

4. Select all the pages you want to publish to your CD.
   

5. Click Publish.
   
   Note: If you cancel publishing in the middle of the operation, files that have already been published remain in the destination folder.

      Complete the CD Package and Create a CDR

Finishing Touches and Special files

Before you create the HTML CDR with your CD writer hardware and software, there are a few things left to do.

      You may want to have your CD automatically display or "AutoRun" an HTML home or index page when it is inserted in the computer. This requires that you create and add an "autorun" file (see "Make Your CD Start Automatically" below) to the root of your burn directory. If you don't want your CD to AutoRun, you should provide instructions on how to launch the home page of the CD from Windows File Explorer.

Adding a Readme File

And it is always a good idea to have a plain text "readme.txt" file in the root of your CD. The readme should contain information about the content, author/company, URLs to download viewers and browser software from the internet, and any special notes or instructions. For example, even if you create an AutoRun CD, you should provide instructions on how to launch the home page of the CD from Windows File Explorer as some people may have AutoRun turned off or otherwise disabled. Ideally, these instructions should accompany your CD and be included in the readme.txt (see the section above on Navigation for more about making your CD easy to use).

So, you will need to create a plain text file using Notepad and save it as "readme.txt" to the root of your burn directory.

Make Your CD Start Automatically (adding the Autorun.inf file option)

When a user inserts a disc into a CD-ROM drive on an AutoRun-compatible computer, the system immediately checks to see if the disc has a personal computer file system. If it does, the system searches for a file named Autorun.inf. Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, Windows NT®, Windows 2000 and Windows XP will AutoRun CDs when they are inserted into the computer.