page within a page

[rmoss_uk]

hi all

I have a website with loads of machine specification pages.
I want to enable manufacturers to upload html pages to my site and display them with the specs in my template.

Problem is, i am having lots of issues just displaying an html document inside a div on my page as the styles etc can affect my template.

Therefore i am thinking of using an iframe.

Then there is a problem with optimisation? or is there?

Also will the actual page in the iframe be indexed into google ?

That will be a problem as then the page will be out of my template etc.

Related as well is: we are thinking that most companies will use a word processor like word to create their documents but trying this an saving it as html is dodgy at best.
How do you all do this? what is the best way of doing this with out having to force all companies to input the documents again into an online text editor?

Comment, help, and advise would be great.

Best Regards
RIchard Moss
CNC Lathes

[wige]

Iframes are bad because many spiders can not crawl them. Security and ad blocking software disable them because of viruses and adwords. And the content benefits the host of the content, not your site if they do get crawled.

How much control do you have over the type of document that the user submits? If you can, I would suggest creating an XML template for the companies to put their data into:

<device>
   <name>Device Name</name>
   <stock>Stock Number</stock>
   <description>Blah blah blah</description>
</device>

In an XML format, the data can easily be processed by any number of applications. You might even be able to find a way to convert spreadsheets into XML, which will give you the raw data to then incorporate into your site.

If this does not work, you could require the users to submit the data in plain html with no tables and mine the data from there with an XML processing program.

[rmoss_uk]

thanks for reply wige,

i am trying to allow my member ( paying ) users to be able to upload their documents to a window in my site surrounded by my template.

This document could be for example in word format. That they have previously created.

I want the user to not have to create this document again from scratch as it could have taken a while and be formated with images and layout etc.

Therefore i am hoping or trying to have a way for them to save this to html ie through word. My script then loops through the html doc and uploads the images.

Problem being is it causes alsorts of problems just opening this html doc in a div inside my template.

Is there another way than an iframe that anyone knows of?

There must be a standard way that sites do this?



Best Regards
Richard Moss

[rmoss_uk]

also the content uploaded will be on my site not other peoples sites so will i get the rank?

and if i create a section in my site map with these pages on, will that help getting it in the index.

cheers

[CompTechie]

iFrames are bad for many reasons and you will take a chance for the search engines to just pick up the frame instead of the whole page, which includes your site navigation etc. Another alternative would be to have your clients create pdf's of their documents and that way it's a package deal and you don't have to process nothing on your end and they wouldn't have to redo a document on their end.

[wige]

The first problem with using the doc files converted to HTML is you have to strip out all the head and body tags, and all the style sheets MS adds. This would probably destroy any layout the user has created in the document and put you back to scratch. However, all a Word document is is a set of XML files. If you look at the source code of a .doc or .docx file, you will probably be able to find the parts of the document you need to extract and create a program to process those contents into something your web server can serve to users.

To view the contents of a .doc file, change the filename to .zip, and use a compression utility to open the compressed file, then go through the XML files inside with a text reader. Programatically, a PHP or Perl upload script could be configured to do the same thing to extract the parts of the document you need.

If you check Microsoft's TechNet, they should have detailed information about the .doc and .docx formats, and you should be able to create your software based on that. You do not want to display the document to users in word format because many of your users won't have word on their computers.

[rmoss_uk]

CompTechie

thanks for reply but i have created a facility for them to upload pdf.

Thats ok for some documents but not all as this opens in new window in acrobat reader ie not in my template.

how do all the large sites allow people to upload documents? surely they don't make people redo all their articles / documents etc again in an online text editor, for example if the users documents are all already done in word ????

i have also tried some of the online text editors and they have word converters / paste functions but they dont work very well.

anyone done anything like this before???

thanks

[rmoss_uk]

thanks again wige

i also cant open up a word file in my template as it opens in a new window with word in it( if you have word as you said)

it would be a major mission writting a program to display an xml file in a standard format on my website when the word file can be in any layout????? would it not?

must be a simpler way out there????


thanks alot

[weslinda]

Do the words content management system mean much to you? If you want to build this large of a site, stop looking for the easy way out. Invest the time and energy to do this right versus trying to hodgepodge something together.

The key here is to create a basic template and go from there. The idea of using XML data is a great one and one that can really save on time and energy in the long run, as with XML data, you handle the styling, not your vendors. They simply have to input the data one time.

Regarding a major mission to display an XML file on your web site. No, you simply use XSL style sheets to accomplish your goal. Many of the large and leading edge CMS systems are moving to storing data in an XML environment as it makes working with the data much easier across applications.

Overall, don't try and open something in a new window, frame, or word document. Work on building a very solid system that works smoothly and will serve long term, and don't be afraid to spend the real money on doing something right.

If you can't do it right, just provide links to the word or PDF documents and call it a day.

[wige]

There is now an open format for word processor documents that word uses. Microsoft was pretty clever in the way that they created the Word document format. Two XML files contain the style and edit information, and a third contains the raw data. This is how programs like Google Desktop Search and Vista Search are able to find text within doc files. The raw data is always in the same file and once you mine that data you can apply any styling you want. Of course, it won't be "easy" by any means. Most likely you would end up with a solution where the user uploads the word document, and your script unzips it, grabs the data, applies template formatting, lets the user make any edits, and then saves the data to a database.

Also, Word 2007 allows you to save Word documents as XML.

[yookoso]

I have created a MS Word HTML Cleanup Tool that works in conjunction with the open source FCKeditor. It allows a user to paste from Word and cleans up the HTML so it isn't dealing with XML as many of the previous posts discuss, but if it sounds useful to you, check it out at:
Webmaster Sherpa - A guide to website design, management, and marketing

Regards,
JB

[madjohn]

The iFrame issue...

We use iframes to link to a product database hosted elsewhere. We are not allowed the database to build our own pages (unfortunately) but are allowed to include the search in our website. Therefore I feel I have no alternative but to use iFrames.

If iFrames are bad, what are my options (if any)? I understand that Frames (& framesets) are also bad (I used to have them and I'm NOT goign back! lol).
So, what are my (and rmoss_uk's) alternatives in this situation..?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by wige

If you can, I would suggest creating an XML template for the companies to put their data into:

Fully agree:

The XML family of technologies will revolutionize web linking etc.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by wige

To view the contents of a .doc file, change the filename to .zip, and use a compression utility to open the compressed file, then go through the XML files inside with a text reader. Programatically, a PHP or Perl upload script could be configured to do the same thing to extract the parts of the document you need.

I think a PHP parser like XMLReader will do the job.

Start in my XML corner at SP, if you are new to XML.

[wige]

Originally Posted by madjohn

We use iframes to link to a product database hosted elsewhere. We are not allowed the database to build our own pages (unfortunately) but are allowed to include the search in our website. Therefore I feel I have no alternative but to use iFrames.

Both Perl and PHP have the ability to open a remote web page, and so you could write your page in either language, and have it open the page and pull out only the snippets of code and embed that content into your own site. All you need to do is find a way for the script to determine where the desired content starts and ends.

Note, however, that this could violate your license agreement or the other company's copyright.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by wige

Both Perl and PHP have the ability to open a remote web page, and so you could write your page in either language, and have it open the page and pull out only the snippets of code and embed that content into your own site. All you need to do is find a way for the script to determine where the desired content starts and ends.

Yes, in the end it is opening the file and import the code as a string. Any language can do the, even if PHP may be most flexible. As long as the job is done well enough, that is good enough.

I do not know XLink good enough. May be the best soultion would be to use XLink and some XSL coding. You find more information about XLink in the second link in my signature, and the first link on that page.

[maureenmuffins]

I had the same kind of issue with some technical manuals on my pages.. I actually found that I could keep the manuals in PDF format and they still get spidered by Google and the like.. So the SEO benefit was still there without the need for weird code or cluttering up the page.

Good luck!