PUB97: Drop Shadows on Transparent GIFs Look Weird in HTML

When you apply a shadow to a picture frame that contains a transparent GIF and then export your publication as HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the shadow appears as a backwards gray L below and to the right of your picture.

Furthermore, if you use the cropping tool to expand the margins of the GIF file and apply a shadow, when you view the publication in your Web browser the GIF has a white frame around it with the shadow applied.

In Publisher, when you apply a shadow to a frame, it becomes opaque. Because a transparent GIF does not appear transparent to Publisher, it applies the shadow without changing the GIF to opaque. Thus, when you export the page as HTML and the GIF file appears transparent once more, the shadow is disassociated from the actual image.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Publisher 98.