My Publications » » Customizing Your iWeb Sites » Publishing & Saving

Publishing (or Saving) Your Website

Most of the work has already been done (Setting Up, Page Layout, and Navigation). This section covers putting your new website pages onto the Internet, also known as uploading, and saving your pages.

  1. Publish
    1. Publish uploads all your web pages to your (or another person's) storage space on MobileMe or an independent web host
    2. Once you publish the first time, your web address will be generated and you will be given the option to notify people of your new website.
  2. Save
    1. Saves your pages without uploading them to the Internet.

Publishing Your Website


Figure 76. After selecting the Site Name, the Site Publishing Settings box opens; name your site and provide an email address.

In Website Setup, you set the Publish to, Site name, Contact email, and choose which MobileMe account you planned to use (if publishing to a MobileMe account), Figure 76.

Publishing to Your MobileMe Account

There are three methods by which you can publish your webpages:

  1. Publish Entire Site in the menu toolbar
  2. Publish Site is a quick, one-click option to publish pages which you have changed
  3. Publish Site Changes requires one more click, File > Publish Site Changes, to accomplish the same as Publish Site

Publish Entire Site publishes (or re-publishes) every page in your website. It's a good idea to use this option every once in awhile; think of it as a reboot or a clearing-of-the-cache for your website. Using either of the first two techniques doesn't always catch all the changes you've made, especially if some of the changes have been made on a number of different pages.

All three publishing methods will end with a box asking if you want to:


Figure 77. Shows the path to access System Preferences to switch to another user's MobileMe account.
  • Announce
    • Creates an email message which provides the web address for your new MobileMe website
  • Visit Site Now
    • A quick click to see what the website looks like
  • OK
    • Acknowledges that you are aware the site has been published
    • Closes this box

Publishing to Someone Else's MobileMe

It is perfectly possible to publish a website to someone else's MobileMe.

  • Move the site you are publishing to the top of the blue column; grab the site name and drag it to the top. If you don't, their site will be published with your web address as the first part of their address. No one will find them! For example, http://www.kddidit.com/drPlumber/home.html. Very not cool.

You will need their login and password to access their MobileMe account which is done by changing the access information in your own System Preferences:

  1. Choose Apple > System Preferences

Figure 78. Shows the path to access System Preferences to switch to another user's MobileMe account.
  1. Choose MobileMe

Figure 79. Click on MobileMe within System Preferences.
  1. Choose Account > Account Details
    1. Choose Sign Out

Figure 80. With the Account tab selected, click on Account Details.
  1. Choose Sign in as a different user to change which MobileMe you are telling iWeb to use to upload the website

Figure 81. As you are signing into someone else's MobileMe, you need to Sign in as a different user.
  1. Type in the other person's log in and password to access their MobileMe account
  2. Be sure to switch back to your own MobileMe account when you’re done!

Figure 82. Enter the other party's MobileMe login and password to enable uploading their website to their MobileMe account. Remember to switch back to your own MobileMe account when you are finished.

Publishing via FTP

  • Move the site you are publishing to the top of the blue column; grab the site name and drag it to the top. If you don't, their site will be published with your web address as the first part of their address. No one will find them! For example, http://www.kddidit.com/drPlumber/home.html. Very not cool.
  1. If publishing via FTP, fill in the Site name and Contact email as per MobileMe
    1. Your web host/Internet Service Provider (ISP) should give you the Server address:
    2. User name and Password are the same you use to access your web host/ISP
    3. Directory/Path is the address for the homepage your web host/ISP provides for you
    4. Protocol refers to which particular FTP process you plan to use—select FTP
      1. Those of you who have more knowledge of the process—and the web host to handle it—may prefer another FTP protocol
    5. URL is your custom domain name, http://www.yourbusinessname.com
    6. Check the Update my Facebook… box if you already have a Facebook account
      1. By linking an iWeb site to your Facebook account, each time you publish your changes, iWeb will add the changes to your profile, alert your friends, and include a handy link with that alert (Web).

Figure 83. In choosing FTP Server as your publishing destination, you will need to fill out along list of data.

Saving Your Website

File > Save saves all the sites in iWeb; as does CMD + S. This action does NOT publish any pages to the Internet.

There is a second way in which to save your site while allowing it to be accessible only to people you choose and definitely NOT available on the Internet—saving it to a folder.


Figure 84. You can publish your website to a folder on your own hard drive or to iDisk.
  1. Select the site name in the left column
    1. This opens the Site Publishing Settings box
  2. In the Publishing section, click the up-down arrows and choose Local Folder
  3. Return to the page upon which you were working

Troubleshooting is the next section. It is ongoing as users (and I) run across problems in iWeb and post the solutions.

Hire a pro!
KD Did It will work with you.

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Questions about some of the terminology used in this tutorial? Get more information (definitions and links) on key computer terms by going to our Glossary of Terms Relating to Art, Computer, Therapy ++.

Kathy Davie is an artist, educator, and author of the arts marketing series, Your Portfolio & You, aimed at helping artists survive (and thrive) at the business of being an artist.

As a self-taught artist, Kathy was frustrated by the lack of information on taking her career to a more professional level while meeting legal guidelines and learning about legal hiccups. Her drive for information fueled her to interview numerous professionals and compiled the information into a monthly news column. She now leads workshops and is converting the news columns into this continuing series of how-to books.

Kathy has a BS in Technical Writing & Editing with minors in Digital Media and History from Metropolitan State College, Denver, CO and is the author of Accounting for the SMALL Businessperson, How Copyright Applies to the Artist, the Buyer, the Employer/e, the Sold Artwork, Dealing with Photographs, Slides, Digital Images, and Surviving the Outdoor Arts Festival.

Visit her writing or arts websites or reach her by email.