Some webmasters, when trying to publish their website using Dreamweaver, have found the "Site Put" menu item to be disabled, or "greyed out" ("grayed out" if you use a different variant of English), preventing them from uploading their new web page. This article shows you how you can re-enable that menu item.
For those not familiar with the Dreamweaver web editor, the "Put" menu item is invoked by users to transfer web pages (or other files) from their own computers to their websites. If you're new to Dreamweaver, you may want to start with my main Dreamweaver tutorial as well as the How to Make / Create a Website: The Beginner's A-Z Guide instead of this article.
In general, those following my Dreamweaver tutorial series should not encounter the disabled "Put" menu item. If you do, it's probably because you have somehow skipped one or two of the required steps. (One visitor to thesitewizard.com mentioned that it occurred because he was working from memory instead of keeping the tutorial open in one window while carrying out the steps in Dreamweaver in another.)
Whatever the case may be, you have two alternatives. One is to return to the tutorial and redo the steps again, this time being careful not to miss out any steps. The other, and I think easier, way is to just use the checklist given below to figure out what you missed. It's probably faster, and you can always return to the main tutorial for details once you've figured out which step you skipped. (It saves you the trouble of having to redo everything.)
Basically, Dreamweaver disables the "Put" menu item when you do not give it enough information so that it knows how to publish your web page. This is usually the result of one of two things:
It doesn't know what you want to publish. This means either that you don't have a web page open in Dreamweaver, or that you did not save your web page onto your hard disk first. It is also the result of saving your web page in the wrong place on your computer.
It doesn't know where you want the page published to. This means that you did not set the necessary FTP information in Dreamweaver's Site Manager.
I've broken down these two basic principles into specific things to check in the section below.
Check to ensure that you have done the following. If you need details about how to do any of the items, please read the full tutorial for clarification. The checklist below is just a quick diagnostic tool. It's not meant to replace the main tutorial.
Do you have any file open in Dreamweaver? If not, open the file you want to publish in the editor.
If you have a file open, have you saved the file on your hard disk? If you have only just designed your web page, you need to save it before you can even publish it. Note that if this is the step you missed, please be sure to return to chapter 1 of the tutorial to ensure that you save it with the correct filename.
If you have a web page open, and have already saved that web page, are you sure you saved the web page to the correct folder on your computer? The web page must be saved to either the folder defined in Dreamweaver's Site Manager, or one of its sub-folders.
For example, if you set your site's folder as "c:\Users\chris\Documents\thesitewizard" when you first created your website using Dreamweaver's "Site | New Site..." menu item, the web page you're trying to publish must be in either "c:\Users\chris\Documents\thesitewizard" or a subfolder of "c:\Users\chris\Documents\thesitewizard" (like "c:\Users\chris\Documents\thesitewizard\subfolder-name"). Dreamweaver will not allow you to publish files outside this folder hierarchy. You cannot, for example, dump a file somewhere on your desktop, outside your website's folders, and ask Dreamweaver to publish it.
If you have a file open, are you sure you're looking at a real web page and not your site template? Look at the tab near the top of your Dreamweaver window. If it says something like "index.dwt" (or anything that ends with ".dwt"), you're looking at your template. It should be "index.html" (or something that ends with ".html"). Close the template, and open the real web page you want to upload. Note: templates are taught in chapter 7 of the Dreamweaver tutorial, so if you don't understand this paragraph because you're still reading chapters 1 to 6, and haven't even got around to creating a template yet, just skip to the next item on the checklist.
(Incidentally, if you're already at chapter 7 of the tutorial, you should be using "Site | Synchronize Sitewide..." as taught in that chapter, instead of "Site | Put".)
Have you added the FTP information for your website to Dreamweaver's Site Manager? Before Dreamweaver can publish any web page, it needs to know where to put it. If you don't remember entering things like your password, FTP hostname, the name of a folder on your web server or testing the FTP connection to your web host, it means that you've forgotten this step. Please go back to the first chapter of the Dreamweaver tutorial and complete the steps in the section "How to Publish (ie Upload) Your Web Page in Dreamweaver". (Note: the link given in the previous sentence is for the first chapter of the Dreamweaver CS6 tutorial. If you use a different version, go to the first chapter of the appropriate version, eg, CS5.5, CS5, CS4 and CS3. The complete list of chapters for all available Dreamweaver tutorials can be found in the Dreamweaver Tutorial index.)
For advanced users who have many websites defined in Dreamweaver's Site Manager, are you sure you're using the correct site definition? Go to the Site Manager by clicking "Site | Manage Sites..." (that is, click the "Site" menu, followed by the "Manage Sites..." item on the menu that appears) and make sure the correct site is selected. If not, click the correct site in the box to select it, and then the "Done" button.
If none of the above works, try deleting your existing site definition in Dreamweaver's Site Manager. To do this, click "Site | Manage Sites...". In the dialog box that appears, select your site name (if it's not already selected) and click the "Remove" button. Then go back to chapter 1 to create a new site definition. When you are asked "Where on your computer do you want to store your files?", select the existing folder on your computer where you currently store your website files. Dreamweaver will then create a new site definition, re-using the existing web pages that you've already created. (Again, the chapter 1 linked here is for CS6. Go to the appropriate chapter 1 for your Dreamweaver version.)
That is, you don't have to redo everything from scratch. You're only redoing the site definition. The web page that you have previously designed and saved on your hard disk will be recognized by Dreamweaver. You can then load it in Dreamweaver and publish it using "Site | Put".
In general, you should not have to do this. It's probably only needed for people who have had a hard disk crash that somehow corrupted the Dreamweaver site definition. I doubt it's really necessary in the majority of cases and I only list it for the sake of completeness.
Once you've done the missing step (or steps), the "Site | Put" menu should no longer be in grey or disabled, and you will be able to invoke it to publish your web page.
Copyright © 2009-2017 by Christopher Heng. All rights reserved.
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Why is "Site | Put" Disabled or Greyed Out in Dreamweaver?
