TechNote (Archived)

Internet Explorer crashes when previewing an HTML document

Issue

When trying to view or preview a Dreamweaver created HTML document in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Explorer crashes. The same document renders correctly in Netscape Communicator browsers.

Reason

This may be caused by PNG images that contain extra information in the file header. Some image editing programs, such as Macromedia Fireworks, create PNGs that contain extra information in the file header. This information is read and used by the image editing program for internal formatting purposes. Internet Explorer 4.x can crash HTML documents referencing PNG images larger than 4K. Microsoft has logged this as a known issue, and it is scheduled to be fixed in Internet Explorer 5. Internet Explorer 3 does not support PNG images.

Solution

To use PNG images on your web pages, be sure to use PNGs that do not contain extra information in the file header.

If you're using Fireworks, you can Export a PNG for use on your pages instead of using the PNG that results from an ordinary Save in Fireworks. Exporting will result in a PNG that omits this extra information in the file header.

Support for the PNG format is limited among browsers. Unless you are working on an intranet where you know that all of your viewers are using a 4.0 browser or better, you may wish to continue to use JPG and GIF format until more users migrate to 4.0+ browsers.

For additional information please refer to Windows Explorer Crashes When I Click on a Fireworks PNG File to View It (TechNote 13501).