HOME - Desire2Learn - Ning - Mythology & Folklore - World Literature - Indian Epics

Mozilla Composer: Image Help

Images Don't Show Up

There are many different reasons why your images might not be showing up on your published webpages. Here are some things to check:

Publish the image file(s) with the webpage. When you are publishing the webpage, check to make sure that you have not accidentally unchecked the box that tells Composer to publish the image files together with the webpage.

Local images. If you have accidentally linked to an image file on your hard drive instead of to an image file on the Internet, it means that you will be able to see the images when looking at the webpage on your computer, but nobody else will be able to see the images. If you suspect this problem, look at the webpage in a browser, and right-mouse click on the image, and choose Properties. If the URL (address) of the image is on your hard drive (file://C:) instead of on the Internet (http:), you need to insert the images again, being careful to follow the instructions for inserting images. This problem also happens frequently when you are trying to work from a diskette (file://A:); in that case, make sure you create a folder on the computer's hard drive for your website, and do your work directly on the computer's hard drive. You can then move you files back to the diskette when you are done.

Blank spaces in the image file name. If your image file name has blank spaces in it, it may not show up in some web browsers. Rename the image file, reinsert the renamed image file into your webpage, and republish.

Aligning Images and Text

There are two options for aligning images and text:

Wrap text. You can use the "wrap around" feature so that the text wraps around the image. To do this, just click on your image in Composer, then click on the Image icon. This will open the Image editing window, and one of the tabs in that window is "Appearance". You can choose the "align text to image" option you prefer - wrap left, wrap right, etc.

Use tables. Alternatively, you can arrange your text and images in cells of a table. To insert a Table you can use the Table icon, or you can use the "Table" menu along the top menu bar. If you are just using the table to align content on the page, set the borders of the table to have zero width (that makes the table borders invisible so nobody will know they are looking at a table). Tables give you more control over the layout of your page in general, because every cell can have its own justification (left-center-right), its own background color, etc.

Getting Rid of the Border Around An Image

When you make an image into a link, Composer automatically puts a border around the image, and the border is the same color as the link color on the page. You can change the border width to 0, which will make the blue border disappear. To do this, click on the image, click the Image icon, and then on the Appearance tab, type in a 0 for border width. The Border box must have the number 0 in it; a blank box is not good enough.

Squished Image

If you let Composer resize the image, you may end up with a seriously squished image. It is important to make sure the image you are using is already the correct size before your insert the image into the webpage. If you need to resize your image, use image editing software to do that, and then reinsert the image into the webpage, not changing any of the image dimensions in Composer. Save the file and republish. (More about Image Editing Software.)

Resizing Images

You should not try to resize an image by making it larger or smaller with the commands in Composer. This simply distorts the image, because you are not really changing the actual image file. If you have an image that is too big, you need to resize the actual image file.

If you have Adobe Photoshop or other image editing software on your computer, it's easy to use that software to resize the image. If you do not have image editing software on your computer, you can use web-based programs like Picnik.com to resize the image or to crop it in order to make it smaller.

If you have an image that is too small, there is no way to make the image larger. If you try to make a small image larger, it will be "pixelated," with little boxes distorting the image.