One of the more confusing aspects of working with Joomla for a novice is figuring out how vertical menus work. It gets even more confusing when you use a template generator like Artisteer to make custom templates. There are very specific parameters that control how a menu functions in Joomla! and whether it appears as a vertical (stacked) menu or a horizontal menu across the top of your website. Here is a quick tutorial on how to work with menus if you have created a template using Artisteer.

The menu module must have the correct settings to display the horizontal menu created by artisteer.

Position should be set to user3, and the menu assignment must be set to all

Next, the parameters must be set correctly. Menu Name must be set to main menu, style set to List, and if you have sub menus, Sub-menus should be set to YES