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BEGINNING TO USE FRONTPAGE 2003
TO EDIT WEB PAGES

Dr. Richard L. Bowman
Academic Computing, Bridgewater College, Bridgewater, VA, USA 22812

II. Start FrontPage 2003

1. Begin by clicking on the Windows "Start" button, selecting "Programs" and locating the link to FrontPage 2003. (Often it will be in a Microsoft Office folder, or it may be in a Multimedia folder.) Once FrontPage 2003 is running, a blank web page will appear ready for composing.

2. IMPORTANT: Set the options appropriately for generic web authoring. FrontPage 2003 has a number of default settings that add a number of different functionalities to web pages that are not compatible with all of the major browsers. The first step is to change these. From the "Tools" menu, select "Page Options." Click on the "Authoring" tab. Then set the "FrontPage and SharePoint technologies" to None (or it can be customized as shown below). Also in the "Browsers" section set it to "Custom" if that is not the option showing. Make certain that the only options selected in this section are "JavaScript," "Java applets," "CSS 1.0" and "CSS 2.0." These last two options allow for automatic generation of cascading style sheets, which in today's web world is mostly OK. The Internet Explorer 6.0 and Firefox 1.0 browsers both express cascading style sheets in similar fashions. However, be aware that some older browsers do not support this capability and not all of the newer browsers implement style sheets in the same way. So for the most certain compatibility with most browsers, do not leave "CSS 1.0" or "CSS 2.0" checked. Your "Page Options/Authoring" dialog box should now look like that shown here.

Also, from the "Tools" menu, select "Options" (not "Page Options" as done above). Then click on the "General" tab, if it is not already showing. Click the checkboxes as necessary to mark the options as shown below.

3. To create a webpage from scratch, begin by typing directly into this clean web page window, as seen below. To make more room for my work, I always close the "Getting Started" task pane to the righ-hand side of the working pane. To get the task pane back at anytime simply select "Task Pane" from the View menu.

To create a new web page while editing another page, simply click on the "Create a new normal page" button on the toolbar.

Caution 1: More options for creating new web sites can be found by clicking on the "File" menu and then selecting "New." A list of possible types of new web pages or even full sites will pop up. However, be very careful about using these design options. These options generate their own structure to a web site and may add features that are not what you may wish. So beginners (or even advanced web authors) would be well warned to stay away from using these options.

Caution 2: In addition to using the included templates and wizards with great caution, do not use the included themes for your web site. In many cases these make web sites with less than optimal readability and ease of editing due to the color and graphics choices and the overhead of HTML code that must be included to set the theme.

4. To edit a web page that already exists on your hard drive or your institution's web server, locate the file and double-click on it to display it in Internet Explorer. From the toolbar of Internet Explorer press the arrow beside the "Edit" button and select "Edit with Microsoft Office Front Page." If no "Edit" button exists or FrontPage is not available as an editor, one may first run FrontPage 2003 and then open the web page file from the "File" menu.

5. If FrontPage needs to be added to Internet Explorer as a web page editor and FrontPage is running on that computer, then check out the procedures below.

• Open FrontPage and from the Tools menu select Options. In the open dialog box, select the "Configure Editors" tab, and in the Extensions pane scroll to the htm and html line and click on it. If FrontPage is not listed in the associated Editors pane, then click the "New Editor" button above that pane and select FrontPage.
• To make FrontPage the default editor in Internet Explorer, run IE and from the "Tools..." menu select "Internet Options." Click on the Programs tab and then make certain that FrontPage is indicated as the HTML editor.
• If all else fails, contact your IT guru (at Bridgewater the IT Center's Help Desk).