- Use the Background Image section of the Page Inspector palette or an HTML item instead of graphic items. If you use a large graphic item in the back of your page then you are likely to get problems with the graphic splitting apart when you put any HTML text or items on top of them.
- Are you sure you need a graphic? If your background is just one color then think about giving the page a color by using an HTML item with a color applied to it instead. Graphics need to be downloaded and placed in the placeholder on your page, which takes time (a lot of time on slower connections). The color of a page or HTML item is handled by the visitor's machine and not downloaded like an image - this makes it many many times faster.
- If you need to use an image, make it as small as possible and consider using a repeatable (tiling) graphic. This is sort of related to the previous "gotcha". The smaller image is downloaded (faster) and the visitor's machine will then handle repeating it in the page or HTML item.
Page backgrounds or background images are great for livening up your site but there are a few "gotchas" to be aware of.