Publishing Your Website with FrontPage 2003

Because of a change in the RootsWeb servers, you can no longer publish your site with FrontPage. You will need to use Filezilla or another 3rd party FTP Client.

You can publish your website with any version of FrontPage, however these instructions and screenshots were done using FrontPage 2003. Specific directions for FrontPage 2000 or FrontPage 2002.

Step 1 - Open your site in FrontPage. Make any necessary changes to your pages before publishing.

Step 2 - Recalculate Hyperlinks Tools > Recalculate Hyperlinks

Screenshot recalculate hyperlinks.

Step 3 - Choose File > Publish Site

Screeenshot FrontPage Publish Site Menu.

 Step 4 - If the remote website dialogue box does not pop up, click the remote website button in the upper right hand side of the window.

Screenshot remote website button.

In the dialogue box, choose the "Remote Web Site" tab.  Tick the button beside "FTP" and then enter the correct information in the fields. What you enter in the remote website location field will depend on which of the RootsWeb servers you will be publishing to.

For FreePages Servers: "Remote Web Site Location" - put in ftp location - ftp://users.freepages.rootsweb.com/ "FTP Directory"  genealogy_html (or whichever one you're publishing to - history_html, misc_html, etc.)

Screenshot for FreePages server - personal website space

For RootsWeb Servers: "Remote Web Site Location" - put in ftp location - ftp://users.rootsweb.com/public_html "FTP Directory"  leave blank

Screenshot for RootsWeb servers  - USGenWeb, WorldGenWeb, lineage societies, libraries, museums, etc.

For HomePages Servers: "Remote Web Site Location" - put in ftp location - ftp://homepages.rootsweb.com/public_html "FTP Directory"  leave blank

Screenshot for HomePages Servers - homepages accounts for persons who in the past contributed $50 or more to RootsWeb

Click on the "Publishing" tab and make your choices: "Changed Pages Only" - the usual choice unless you are publishing the entire site for some reason. "Changes" - You could use either one, but I use "Determine changes by comparing source and destination" "Logging" - If you tick "Log changes during publish" you would have a log entry to use if you have problems uploading.

Screenshot remote properties publisning tab.

Step 5 - Click OK. Enter your username and password. REMEMBER, your password is CaSe SenSItive.

Step 6 - Once connected, you will see your site on your hard drive on the left hand side of the window and your remote site on the right hand side of the window

Screenshot Remote Website Listing.

There are two sets of publishing buttons - between the two windows and at the bottom right of your screen

"Local to Remote" is ticked by default. My normal choice is to click Publish Web Site button and let FrontPage publish all the changes.
If you only want to publish a couple of pages, you could highlight the files and click the arrow located between the two windows and only those files would be published.

If you choose "Remote to Local" you could publish your remote site to your local computer. You would choose this if for some reason you lost or damaged you local copy of your website. You should always have at least one backup copy of your website.

"Synchronize" - compares the local and remote sites and moves the data back and forth until they match.  Use this with caution.

Step 7 - Once you site has completed publishing, you will receive a notice in the lower left corner of the window.

Troubleshooting Tips

If you encounter problems when you publish check the following:

  • Did you type your username and password correctly. Remember the password is CAse SenSiTivE
  • Did you use the correct ftp address
  • did you choose the correct remote directory to publish to
  • That your files do NOT contain any type files that are not allowed by the RootsWeb servers such as files with a .zip extension, CGI scripts, mp3 files, GEDCOM files
  • If you have a Firewall installed, did you give FrontPage the permissions it needs to publish?
  • Do you have spaces in your files names? This SOMETIMES will cause problems. Use either a hyphen or an underscore in naming your files. file-name.html or file_name.html rather than file name.html

If you try everything and it still doesn't work, be sure and ask for help. Try the FrontPage list for FrontPage specific questions.