Re: Top border difficulty and a Table Questions too

Hello Brent:

Firstly, I enjoy reading poetry and seeing the web used for this type of 
exposition instead of always just selling product. Thank you for taking the 
time to do this.. :-)

You asked:

>  I
>  placed a table at the top with a transparent .gif in it. Somewhere someone
>  told me to do this with side and top borders. I'm not sure why but I have. 

If you don't understand why you're doing it, then don't do it. As my mother 
used to say, "if your friend jumped out a window, would you do it also?"  You 
know how mothers are...  :-)

Right now this transparent .gif, which is usually used as a spacer, is not 
doing much at all except sitting on top of your top graphic.

>I
>  have a problem with a couple of areas on this page. I want to change the
>  color to the color background on the link below which I think I can
>  accomplish but right now the top border is also across the bottom of my
>  screen. Why? How do I fix or prevent this?

As Fuzzy said, your image is tiling. 

You're almost at the solution - create your graphic, "dgwodtopper", long 
enough to prevent the tiling from showing.  You've created it as about 1550 
px in height.  That's not enough for your page - you've got to go longer so 
when it does tile, it's way out of sight of the reader, way down below where 
you final copy ends.

Now, you create a table - in the first row of the table, you put your clear 
.gif.  In the next row of the table - 2nd row - you start your text.  That 
clear .gif now becomes a spacer, or also called a shim.  You use these clear 
.gifs for precise placement of images and text.

Next - your head calls for "Lucida Calligraphy".  It must be a beautiful font 
- but I can't see it.  What I see is my default font because I don't have 
Lucida Calligraphy on my system.  If you really want that font, then you will 
have to create it as "art" - ie create it in Photoshop or Ilustrator, save 
for web as a .gif, and treat it like any other image.  That way the reader 
will always see Lucida Calligraphy.


Now - you want to give the background a beige color?  That's a problem 
because the .jpg you created has a white background to it and that's what the 
browser is seeing.  You have two choices now - you can go back to your 
original long .jpg and give it a beige background OR you create a repeating 
graphic at the top at the top only in your image program (Photoshop?) and 
when you save it, give it a "matte" color the beige that you want.  Then this 
will go in the first row of the table.  Then you give you body that same 
background color.

So you will then have one large table - first row will have the 
"dgwodtopper.jpg" which is one long repeating image, second row you might 
have the clear .gif, third row will begin your text.  This time though you 
will have to give the table width a finite px dimension which will be the 
equivalent to your top .jpg

Lastly, your sentence length is very wide.  In theory, the line length should 
be about one and one half times the full alphabet in that font.  For 
instance, count off 39 letters in that font ( a thru z, then after "z" you 
start at "a" again).  No longer than say twice the length in any case.  This 
makes the text easier to follow.  Now you might have to play with your table 
width a bit, or possibly place the text in its own table within the outer 
table.  Confused yet?  :-)

I hope this makes some sense of things.  If not, write back, and I'll try to 
make it clearer.  The other listers, should they see a problem with what I 
wrote or have better suggestions, will come straight to the front anyway..... 
 :-)

- Jeff Kopito

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