I've been messing around with VSD trying to check the ability to center things in pages easily.

i made a page 1200x800 with the 'centered' checkbox checked.

I put a small text box with some characters in it, then previewed. I would expect to see the text in the center of the screen if it was working, but it's not. it's basically right where I placed it in VSD.

If i'm going to use this program i'm going to need a lot better control than this. Am I doing something wrong or is there some sort of a problem with the software so far?

Hi Patrick,

To horizontally center any object on your page, you must place two vertical guides on your page (view > Insert vertical guide) You than can select any object and hit Object > Center between guides.

(If you want to center vertically, you must insert two horizontal guides.)

This is much smarter than blindly center it on a page. This gives you the possibility to center between objects if your design ask for it.

Try it, you surely like it.

I hope this help.

Patrick,

The centered button you clicked is to center the page inside the browser window. Try opening a browser window that is larger than the 1200 width you have selected and you will see equal space on each side of the webpage.

VSD is a WYSIWYG type program. You should see text in your browser in the same location that you placed it with VSD.

VSD is working as it is designed to work.

This 'sorta' works.

It centers for whatever width you choose, but if you shrink the window, the content stays wherever it was to begin with.

I guess i'm looking for something that sizes based on the browser width. I want the info to be in the center of the browser, no matter how wide the user has the window open. I cannot figure out a way to do that.

Any help would be appreciated and thank you for those who have tried to answer me so far.

Patrick,

You have to design your page to accomodate the width of the browser resolution on the "users" computer, not the monitor you are designing the website on.

Don't assume that everybody has a later model, XP O/S, high performance CPU with extended graphics capabilities.

The lions share of the people using the web are using economy off-the-shelf factory built computers that have limited graphics capabilities. They are factory preset to the lower resolution settings. Many people also have to set their display properties to a lower resolution in order to view the typeset on the page without glasses.

Actually changing the type size in displays is way more complicated than most people will attempt.

If you are designing a page wider than 800-1000 pixels then your page is going to overrun most of your potential traffics graphics display - they'll have to scroll right to view your entire page.

Also make sure your "Backgound Fill Properties" (under SETIINGS / Background Fill Properties...) are set to "Continue the background fill beyond the border". This will flood any users monitor screen to the edges beyond your actual active web page. Your page will appear to be "Full width" and it will be centered in their monitor.