centering my website pages

Colette's picture

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Sep 2007

Okay..so I use a diddly little amateur windows 98 website for dummies design program (called webpage maker--they don't even make it anymore) ..no coding etc involved. for years my website has always been centered online..I recently got service pack 2 and it's screwed up..I researched and found that spack 2 can affect the ftp operations of page loading..anyway, I do know how to do some remedial code editing..could someone look at my page and tell me if there is a code that will center my site and does it have to go on the top of all pages (please say no since I have 200 pages!!) To see what I mean, see my first page of my site at facemaker.ca Then look at the recently loaded page, which, won't center even though it's centered in my program and was loaded in the same way as page one.. see that at facemaker.ca/page8.html

If you can give me corrective code in exactly the manner it would appear and tell me exactly where to put it, I'd be forever indebted.
eg. "after the head and before the title"

Thanks everyone. I have to reload my site and do updates and since pages won't center anymore, I need to reload all 200 pages so it all looks the same...jeesh....or If you can tell me how to center it, it would save a lot of work. Thanks.

Busy's picture

He has: 6,151 posts

Joined: May 2001

at the first table tag, you need to put;

align="center"

so change this:

to this:

this will have to be done in all pages I'm afraid.

*thought to self*
It's sad when editors supply such horrible, non web standard code

sitesupport's picture

He has: 190 posts

Joined: Jun 2007

Yeah, i think the only way is to edit all the pages It doesn't look too bad though, since your content is as wide as it is.

Colette's picture

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Sep 2007

Thanks guys but I just went in to look at my existing code for facemaker.ca/page8.html and the code you suggest to put in is already there. This is what you suggest below. The only difference is the
after the "center"...so I added that to see if it would make a difference and it didn't center the page.

Then I tried moving the "align center" to after the =776> as it appears to be in your example..nope didn't work..bizarre..that's what was bugging me. I knew when I uploaded it, the code was telling it to center and it always did before with this program..I can't for the life of me understand why service pack 2 has made a difference in the ftp loading..geeesh.Thanks anyway. It remains a puzzle. When I load all my new updates, I'll have to settle for a "flush left" website.

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

try this before your body tag

then end the div after your body tag - in your case in between

SO
at the top have this

ALL YOUR OTHER CODE...

can I ask why you have extremely light grey text on a white background? it's unreadable
and there is a huge white space for some reason in the middle of the page, took a good scroll to get past that

and although you're probably used to your website maker, it is probably time to make a move into the current
a lot has changed and is frequently changing

nice site though
nice clean crisp solours and style
personally I would have had some of the stuff on different pages, but that's my pov

Colette's picture

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Sep 2007

Hi Greg. Thanks for the code. I'm going to try it right now. In answer to your question on the grey text, I don't think you are referring to my front page..I have some grey text on some internal pages where I've had the text done in jpeg picture so it looks good but I wanted to repeat it so the engines could pick it up..but there was no need to draw attention to it again, so I made it pale...but not such a good idea because google de-indexed me last week..I'm now fighting that battle--a whole other thread.

I'd love to know what you refer to by suggesting to have some stuff on different pages. I'm always open to ideas and ways of improving my site.

Because I'm a remedial idiot and don't code..the old software is all I know right now. I bought Web Easy Professional and it does a lot of stuff. I'm struggling with how to do the java drop down menu..I use Xara menu maker and this new program doesn't let me use it as easily so I'm trying to figure out how to make it happen. I'll learn eventually, but it means reloading all the content from 208 pages currently online and I haven't the time right now..so many projects. I will move into the new age, I just will not use frontPage or dreamweaver because they aren't as WYSIWYG for me. my brain can only take so much.

Thanks. Colette
facemaker.ca

Colette's picture

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Sep 2007

Hey Greg..I just tried your code..I have a sample graphic on this page facemaker.ca/page231.html where I've added your code..still isn't centering..gosh..can't imagine what's going on.

don't beat your brain..I'm thankful for the first attempt.

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

that example page (test) you have two tags. and you dont end the div I gave you

the code I provided makes a div 970px wide and centres it in your browser
then whatever HTML is inside that tag will display inside that div
HTML HERE

but because the table wasnt centered (align="center"), it wasnt centered inside the div and therefore that image you had which is in a table wasnt centered either

anything that goes in the div has to be centred or it will just be to the left (as it should be) *but still inside the div

970px width is because that's about right for the max width of pages for users with 1024 resolution

copy this following code entirely and paste it into your test page
dont have anything else in the test page except for the code below so make a blank page and copy the following
then view the page in your browser and you should understand better (I hope)
I made that div code I gave you with a border so you can see what the div is doing and what the things in that div are doing

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C/DTD HTML 3.2//EN">

<!--    Created by Web Page Maker 1.2m  -->
<!--    This page created by: Colette Cormier   -->
<!--    Web Page Author's e-mail address: [email protected]   -->
<!--    Copyright:: Colette Cormier   -->
<!--    Last Updated: 9/29/2007   -->
<!--    18:18:29   -->

<HTML>

<HEAD>
<TITLE>test</TITLE>
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Web Page Maker 1.2m">
<meta name="AUTHOR" content="Colette Cormier">
</HEAD>


<BODY LEFTMARGIN=0 TOPMARGIN=0 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 BACKGROUND="weddinggowns.jpg" BGCOLOR="#ffffff" TEXT="#421e85" LINK="#e300fb" VLINK="#9415ff" ALINK="#ff00bf" >
<div style="width:970px; margin: 0px auto; border:4px solid #000">
<br /><br />
&nbsp;<-------------------------------------------------&nbsp;&nbsp;THIS IS THE DIV. 970PX WIDE&nbsp;&nbsp;------------------------------------------------->&nbsp;


<!-- START - Lock Page Width -->

<table BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=776px align="center"><TR><TD>
<IMG SRC="spla3a3a.gif" WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=70><BR CLEAR=ALL>


THIS IS YOUR IMAGE IN THE TABLE BUT WITH "ALIGN="CENTER" ADDED TO THE TABLE. SO ITS IN THE CENTER OF THE DIV IT'S CONTAINED IN
<br />THIS TEXT IS ALSO IN THE TABLE, AS THE TABLE IS CENTERED SO IS THIS TEXT
<!-- Display Image (Centered) -->
<DIV ALIGN=CENTER><IMG SRC="airbrushwebsmall.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="airbrush makeup toronto" WIDTH=744 HEIGHT=198 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 ></DIV></TD></TR></TABLE>

<!-- END - Lock Page Width -->
<BR /><BR />
THIS IS RANDOM TEXT. WITHOUT ANY ALIGNMENT IT JUST GOES TO THE LEFT OF THE DIV - AS IT SHOULD


</div>
</BODY>
</HTML>
'

if you want to see what WAS happening before, just remove the align="center" from the TABLE and save and upload the file again
you will see why it didnt look central before

if you still get stuck don't be afraid to ask
this is a great place to ask about whatever you are stuck with so you can improve and learn more
I do suggest you read a few tutorials on the basics of HTML. it will help you better your website, and also help you understand what your web creating software is doing
a couple of good sites to read through are
http://www.tizag.com/htmlT/
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp

they are very simple to follow.

good luck

Colette's picture

They have: 5 posts

Joined: Sep 2007

Hi Greg..thanks so much for all your help...I've realized that I'm totally a right-brained person. It took 20 minutes to read and figure out how to change my page as you had written. I was dizzy at the end...then when I did it, it didn't center and I was looking at the actual page width 970 as text on my screen. I totally don't get it. I have 207 pages I'm reloading online so I can't change each page I realize. So I"m going to leave the whole damn site running flush left (I have no clue why changing to service pack 2 has affected the funtioning of my webpage software, any way, I've got web easy professional and it does centre pages automatically..I'm just not a coder..it took me long enough to figure out how to do the drop down menu..thanks sooo much. I guess I was hoping for a magic bullet that I could use on my first page that would instruct all other pages to behave...that just isn't in the cards. You ROCK!!!!

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