Member Avatar for sj2222

I was previously hosted by a 3rd party website builder. They sent me the files on a disk (for some reason not FTP). I uploaded those files to Dreamweaver. Now the CSS is displaying in Design mode but not in live mode. HELP!

<!--[if lte IE 8]> <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="/design/css/site.css" media="screen, projection" /> <![endif]-->
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="design/css/site.css" media="all" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="design/css/wysiwyg.css" media="all" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="design/css/dynamic-products.css" media="screen, projection" />
<!--[if lte IE 8]> <link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="/design/css/practice-products.css" media="screen, projection" /> <![endif]-->
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="design/css/practice-products.css" media="screen and (min-device-width:768px), projection" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="design/css/print.css" media="print" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="design/css/handheld.css" media="handheld" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="../ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.1/jquery.min.js"> </script>
<!-- Video2 VideoHostStream2 -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="includes/video/html5/js/jquery.tools.min-Video.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="includes/video/html5/js/findlaw-players.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../admin.brightcove.com/js/APIModules_all.js"> </script>




<link media="screen, projection" href="includes/video/html5/css/findlaw-players.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />


<script type="text/javascript">var highlightOptions = { pageID: 'Home', pageSection: '', pageSectionTop: '' }</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="design/scripts/highlight.js"> </script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="design/scripts/cascadingMenu.min.js"> </script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="design/scripts/sifr.js"> </script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="design/scripts/disclaimerLinkV2.js"> </script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="design/scripts/init.js"> </script>
<script type="text/javascript">
    var _gaq = _gaq || []; 
    _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-25638302-1']); 
    _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); 
    (function() { 
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; 
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? '' : '') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; 
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); 
    })();
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="includes/PublishHead.js"></script>
</head>
  • 2 Contributors
  • 1 Reply
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  • 1 Hour Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by JorgeM

Dani AI

Generated

Design view is a visual editor inside Dreamweaver; Live view (and Preview-in-Browser) uses a real browser engine and will only apply stylesheets the browser can actually fetch. Because the files were copied from a third‑party builder and dropped into Dreamweaver, the most likely culprits are path resolution, testing‑server configuration, or malformed resource URLs. As pointed out, relative paths are the usual suspect; ’s mix of path styles and external includes increases that risk.

Quick, practical checks (in this order):

  • Preview the page in a real browser and open DevTools → Network. Reload and look for 404/403 for .css and .js files.
  • Paste each stylesheet URL from the page source into the browser address bar to confirm the file actually loads and contains CSS.
  • Confirm whether links are root‑relative (start with /) or page‑relative. Root‑relative paths behave differently under file:// previews. Use an HTTP testing server (Dreamweaver’s testing server or a simple local server) so / maps to the site root.
  • Look for malformed external URLs (missing http(s):// or extra .. segments). Temporarily disable external scripts to isolate the problem.
  • Temporarily set media="all" on a stylesheet to rule out media queries hiding the file.
  • Check for unclosed HTML/conditional comments above the links; a stray comment can silently comment out link tags.

Small, safe examples to try as tests:

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

Or, for a quick base test (replace the placeholder):

<base href="http://localhost/your-site/">

In practice, fixing the path mapping or correcting malformed CDN/script URLs and then doing a hard reload (Ctrl+F5) will restore styles in Live/preview. DevTools network and console output will point directly to the missing or blocked resource.

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Do you have this site online to take a look? Or do you mean "live" using the local web server instance running on your computer? I am not familiar with Dreamweaver, but have had a similar issue with another IDE where the relative paths would not work in the IDE web server because the IDE webserver did not start web at the root of the application.

So check your relative paths...

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