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Microsoft FrontPage

Creating a Web Page

To Start Microsoft Front Page

  1. On the Windows taskbar, click the Start-Programs-Microsoft FrontPage. 
  2. FrontPage opens and displays a blank page ready for editing (see above image). 

    The Standard and Formatting toolbars are displayed by default. They provide easy access to the commands you will use most often when working in FrontPage.

To Show Additional Toolbars

Select View-Toolbars, and then select the toolbars you want to display. To add or remove buttons from toolbars, click Customize. 

The icons on the Views bar provide different ways of looking at the information on your page or in your web. As you work with FrontPage, you’ll frequently switch between views to match the current task at hand.

When you start FrontPage, Page view is displayed by default. Page view is a powerful editing tool for creating and designing Web pages. As you enter text, place pictures, insert documents, create tables, make lists, and design the appearance of your Web pages, Page view displays them as they will appear in your Web browser. All HTML code is automatically created in the background and you don’t need to manually edit any code unless you want to.

To Insert Text on Your Page

On the blank page in Page view, begin typing. Just like in a word processor, text will wrap
automatically, and pressing ENTER puts the cursor on a new line.

To Insert a Hyperlink on Your Page

  1. Choose Insert-Hyperlink
  2. In the Create Hyperlink dialog box, type in the web address of the page you would like to link to in the URL box. (Note that http:// is automatically entered for you.) 
  3. Click OK to finish creating the hyperlink. 

Note: that the entire URL will appear as a link on your page.  

If you would prefer to have the link appear as text instead of a URL

  1. Type the text you would like to use on your page, then press ENTER. 
  2. Click and drag the mouse over the words you just typed to select them. 
  3. Follow the instructions above to create your hyperlink. 

To Insert a Picture on Your Page

(You must first have a picture saved on your computer or in your network space.)

  1. Select Insert-Picture-From File. 
  2. In the Select File dialog box, navigate to the drive and folder where you have saved your picture.
  3. When you find your picture, double-click on the filename to insert the picture on your page. 

To Create a Hyperlink from a Picture

  1. Select the picture you just inserted by clicking once on it. 
  2. Click Insert-Hyperlink or click on the Hyperlink icon.
  3. In the URL box, type in the web address of the page you would like to link the picture to. 
  4. Click OK to finish creating the hyperlink. 

Using Themes in FrontPage

FrontPage includes more than 50 professionally designed themes with matching color schemes that you can apply to any or all pages in your web. A theme consists of design elements for bullets, fonts, pictures, navigation buttons, and other graphics. When applied, a theme gives pages, page banners, navigation bars, and other elements of a web an attractive and consistent appearance. 

To apply a theme to an individual page

  1. Select Format-Theme. 
  2. When you click on the name of a theme, the Sample of Theme window shows a sample of the graphical elements that are contained in the selected theme. Before applying a theme, you can select theme options that affect the appearance of the theme’s components. For example, selecting Vivid colors applies brighter colors to text and components, and selecting Background picture applies a graphical background to the pages in your web. 
  3. From Apply Theme To, choose Selected Pages. 
  4. Click OK to apply the theme. 
  5. Save your changes. 

    Note: Using a theme may overwrite some of the manual formatting you may have done to your pages. If this is the first time you have applied a theme to these pages you may receive a warning message. Click Yes to apply the theme.

Working with Webs (ADV)

How Webs Differ from Individual Web Pages

A web is a collection of a home page and its associated pages, graphics, documents, multimedia, and other files. When you save your pages to a web, FrontPage can automatically manage and repair hyperlinks, organize files and folders, maintain dynamic navigation bars, check spelling across all pages in the web, and generate reports that point out problems with your pages and files. 

To Create a New Web

  1. Select File-New-Web.

    FrontPage displays the New dialog box. Here, you can choose from several web templates and wizards, specify where you want to save your web, and what you want to call it. It is recommended that you choose the One Page Web option.
  2. Once you’ve named and saved your web, click the Navigation icon on the Views bar.

Navigation View shows a graphical representation of the structure of your Web site. Because you created a one-page web, FrontPage has automatically designated it as the web’s home page—indicated with a small icon of a house. Creating a web structure in Navigation view enables features such as page banners and navigation bars that are automatically updated whenever you change, add, or remove pages in your web. This makes it easy to change things as you update your web, and as it grows in size.

To Create a Navigation Structure

In Navigation view, click the New Page button on the toolbar. FrontPage creates a new page labeled “New Page 1” below the home page. You can add additional pages by pressing Ctrl+N or right-click on the page and select New Page. Pages in Navigation view aren’t the actual pages in the current web; they are placeholders that point to them. This allows you to experiment with the structure and organization of a web before you create its content. 

To Edit Your Page Titles

With the home page still selected, press TAB. When “New Page 1” is selected, type a page name of your choice and then press TAB to move to the next page. Pressing ENTER after editing a page title saves the new title without selecting another page. To deselect all pages, click anywhere outside the pages in Navigation view. 

Note: Don't rename your home page FrontPage will automatically name your home page index.htm. (Do not change this name unless you are running local Web server software on your computer or if you want to web to be included in the Lawrence web directories and other info page it need to be named welcome.html.) It is named index.htm because Web browsers will automatically look for this name when a site visitor types the URL to your web site without a specific page reference.

To Import a Page into a Web

You may have already created a web page, text file, or other type of document that you would like to use in your new web design. To import that page to your web, follow these steps:

  1. In Navigation view, double-click one of the blank pages you created in your web. This will be where you import your previously created page. 
  2. Select Insert-File. FrontPage displays the Select File dialog box. Here, you can insert Web pages, word-processing documents, text files, and other documents on the current page.
  3. In the Select File dialog box, navigate to the location where your file is saved. (Note that the File Type defaults to HTML documents. If you are looking for another type of document, you’ll need to change the File Type to read “All Files.”)
  4. Click on the file once to highlight it and then click Open (or just double-click on the file name). FrontPage will insert that file onto the current page.
  5. To save the current page to your web, click File-Save, or click the Save button on the toolbar.

Embedded Files

When you save your imported page, you may see a Save Embedded Files dialog box appear on your screen. Embedded files are images or files that were included in the document you just imported into your web. This dialog box gives you the opportunity to preview, rename, save and/or update embedded files that the current web will use.

To keep your web page portable, you should always keep associated pages and files as part of the web that uses them. In the Save Embedded Files dialog box, click OK. FrontPage will save the new page into your web, and save copies of the embedded picture files to the current web. 

Check your spelling

Generating a Site Summary

Reports view is an important tool that shows you the overall health and condition of your web before you publish it to the World Wide Web. You can generate custom reports about your web in up to 14 categories.

To generate a Site Summary report

On the Views bar, click the Reports icon.FrontPage switches to Reports view. The default report is the Site Summary. This report shows you the overall statistics of the pages and files in your web.

Here are some important ones to look at before you publish your web:

To Add a Group of Files to the Current Web

  1. Click the Folders icon on the Views bar to switch to Folders view. Folders view is an expanded view of the Folders list that you have seen in Navigation view and Page view. Similar to Windows Explorer, here you can view details about the files and folders in your web, and perform such file management tasks as adding, deleting, moving, copying and renaming files.
  2. Select File-Import. FrontPage displays the Import dialog box (see below). Here you can add files and folders from local file system, or a resource on the Internet or World Wide Web, such as an FTP server.
  3. In the Import dialog box, click Add File. Navigate to the folder and file you want. Select the file and click Open. When the list of selected file types appears, select your file by clicking once on the file name, and then click Open.

    Note: If you want to open more than one file, hold down the Ctrl key while you select additional files. Release Ctrl when the files are selected, and then click Open.
  4. Click OK to import the listed files into the current web.

Working with Images

Having lots of large pictures on your Web page for people to look at is great, but not everyone has a fast connection to the Internet. Graphics-heavy pages can take a long time to download, and, no matter how interesting your site may be, people may lose interest if it takes too long to load. 

Using thumbnails – small preview images of pictures – gives your visitors the choice of whether they want to spend time downloading the full-size pictures on your page. Creating thumbnails is easy with the Auto Thumbnail tool.

Setting Thumbnail Preferences

To change the default options for the thumbnails FrontPage creates of your pictures, select Tools - Page Options and select the Auto Thumbnail tab. 

Here, you can specify the size of automatic thumbnails, whether each thumbnail should have a border to indicate the presence of its associated hyperlink, and whether thumbnails should be displayed with a beveled edge to simulate a button.

To Create Thumbnails of Pictures:

  1. Open the web page that contains the pictures you want to make thumbnail images of.
  2. Select the first picture. FrontPage displays the Pictures toolbar below Page view.
  3. Click the Auto Thumbnail button on the Picture toolbar.

    A thumbnail of the selected picture is created. A blue border edges the picture to indicate a hyperlink to the original picture. Site visitors can click each thumbnail to download the full-sized pictures.

    Repeat these steps for additional thumbnail pictures if desired. 

    Click anywhere on the page to deselect the last thumbnail.

    NOTE: Creating thumbnails doesn’t actually modify the original picture files in any way. Instead, it quickly makes a copy of the picture, resizes it, downsamples the display resolution of the picture, inserts a hyperlink pointing to the original picture file, and adds a border around the thumbnail to indicate the presence of a hyperlink. 
  4. Click the Save button to save the changes you’ve made.

    Because FrontPage made small copies of the pictures that are represented by a thumbnail, it needs to save the thumbnails to the current web. The names of the thumbnail picture files are the same as the original pictures, but FrontPage adds a “_small”suffix to each file name for easy identification.
  5. Click OK to save embedded files.

    You can treat thumbnails like any other pictures on your pages and move them where you want them.

Using Themes in FrontPage

A theme consists of design elements for bullets, fonts, pictures, navigation buttons, and other graphics. When applied, a theme gives pages, page banners, navigation bars, and other elements of a web an attractive and consistent appearance. FrontPage includes more than 50 themes with matching color schemes that you can apply to any or all pages in your web.

To apply a theme to an individual page

  1. Select Format-Theme.
  2. Select a theme from the list.

When you click on the name of a theme, the Sample of Theme window shows a sample of the graphical elements that are contained in the selected theme. 

Before applying a theme, theme options can be chosen to affect the appearance of the theme’s components. For example, selecting Vivid colors applies brighter colors to text and components, and selecting Background picture applies a graphical background to the pages in your web.

  1. Under Apply Theme To, choose Selected Pages.
  2. Click OK to apply the theme. Using a theme may overwrite some of the manual formatting you may have done to your pages. If this is the first time you have applied a theme to these pages you may receive a warning message. Click Yes to apply the theme.
  3. Save your changes.

Custom graphics may be used for various theme elements such as page banners, navigation buttons, background pictures, and other elements. FrontPage superimposes text over these graphics, so there is no need to change graphics when you change the names of your pages, or add or remove pages.

To modify a theme

  1. Open your home page in Page view.
  2. Select Format - Theme. FrontPage displays the Themes dialog box. The theme you applied to your web will appear as the default theme. 
  3. In the Themes dialog box, choose All pages.
  4. Click Modify. 
  5. Under the question What would you like to modify? click on the element you would like to change.

Adding Shared Borders and Navigation Bars

Shared borders are page regions reserved for content that you want to appear consistently through the pages in your web. These borders can contain page banners and navigation bars. Page banners display the page title you gave each page when you created or saved it. Navigation bars are a row or column of hyperlinks to the other pages in the current web. FrontPage can automatically update shared borders and navigation bars, so the navigation structure of your web will always work correctly, even when you add, move, or delete pages from the web’s structure.

To create shared borders across a web

  1. Click the Navigation icon on the Views bar to switch to Navigation view.
  2. Select Format - Shared Borders.

    Here, you can specify where on your pages FrontPage should insert shared borders. Because your web structure has two levels of pages – the home page and the pages below it – you may want to use two kinds of shared borders and two kinds of navigation bars.

  3. In the Shared Borders dialog box, choose All pages. 
  4. For a horizontal shared border, select the Top check box and select the Include navigation buttons check box. For a vertical shared border, select the Left check box and select the Include navigation buttons check box.
  5. Click OK.

FrontPage creates shared borders and default navigation bars for all the pages in the current web. By default, the top shared border points to pages on the same level as the current one, whereas the left border points to pages below the current one.

When a navigation bar is inserted on a page that is part of a web’s structure, FrontPage automatically creates hyperlinks to the pages that are below that page in the structure (child level), above that page in the structure (parent level), and equal to that page in the structure (same level).

To customize navigation bars

Double-clicking a navigation bar opens the Navigation Bar Properties dialog box. Here you can customize the appearance of a navigation bar and the hyperlinks it creates.

Publishing your Web

  1. Close all open pages in Page view.
  2. On the File menu, click Publish Web, or click the Publish Web button on the toolbar.
    FrontPage displays the Publish Web dialog box. Specify the location on the World Wide Web to which you want to publish your web.
  3. Enter the URL of your target Web server, and then click Publish. FrontPage publishes the current web from your computer to the server you specified. You may also use WS_FTP.

If the Web server to which you are publishing your webs has the FrontPage Server Extensions installed, your webs will have full functionality of FrontPage-based components and Web scripts that you may have inserted on your pages.

If FrontPage detects that you are publishing to a Web server that does not support the FrontPage Server Extensions, it will attempt to publish the current web via the FTP file transfer protocol. 

Publishing webs to a Web server that does not have the FrontPage Server Extensions installed may disable some functionality contained on your pages. You can work around this problem by using a file transfer program and making certain to publish all files associated with your web page. (You may find additional folders and/or files that don’t appear when publishing through FrontPage.) 

The speed at which FrontPage publishes your web depends on your connection speed, as well as the number and complexity of the pages and files in your web.

 

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