Microsoft FrontPage express

Introducing Microsoft FrontPage Express

FrontPage Express is a Web-page editor that gives you full access to the power of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).

You can use FrontPage Express to create and format Web pages in HTML, working in a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") view, so you can see how your formatting and layout will actually appear.

It is a stripped down version of FrontPage and it has all that you need to make your homepages. If you have Windows 98, then you probably have FrontPage Express on your computer.

It is generally located at: Start---Programs---Internet Explorer---FrontPage Express. If you don't have it, go to one of these sites to download it:

If these links become broken, go to Google.com and type in, "frontpage express download" (include the quotation marks.) Hopefully, a download will be found. FrontPage Express is bundled with Internet Explorer 5. Now that IE 5.5 has been released, FPX is no longer available at the Microsoft web site.

Microsoft FrontPage Express Features

With the easy-to-use features of FrontPage Express, you can create powerful and sophisticated Web pages. For example, you can:

Apply HTML tags from the list on the toolbar without having to manually type them in.
Select text or paragraphs and apply formatting and alignment with the click of a toolbar button.
Insert images that you've created or clip-art from your favorite collections (collections are not included with FrontPage Express).
Open existing Web pages directly from the Web (if the Web Publishing wizard is installed) or from a file on your computer or a network.
Save your work directly to the Web (using the Web Publishing wizard) or to a file.
Add marquees (scrolling text).

FrontPage Express offers many of the features of Microsoft FrontPage Editor, in a smaller package. It's easy to move up to FrontPage without having to learn a new program or method of creating Web page. FrontPage offers the added features of FrontPage Editor and FrontPage Explorer.

Creating A New FrontPage Document

The FrontPage Express window opens and it will be blank. We will work from this blank screen because you will learn the most about the program. But while we are at this starting point, please note that if you choose File (alt-f) and then choose New (n), you will see the New Page dialog box:

We are using the Normal Page for this lesson. But later, when you're on your own, you can explore the wizards.

Creating A Web Page In FrontPage Express

You can create all of the web pages we have written in HTML by using FrontPage as if were creating a document in a Word Processing program.

The program has tool bars just the same as any other Microsoft Office program. They are:

Standard Toolbar
Format Toolbar
Forms Toolbar

The standard toolbar has all of the buttons for standard windows functions, such as file commands and clipboard operations, along with buttons to inserting images and hyperlinks into your page.

The Format Toolbar allows you to format the text in your web page. You can change things such as bold, italic, font type, font size, alignment and colour.

The Forms Toolbar allows you to place form elements in your web page.

Saving A Web Page

Before you do any work it is always sensible to save your web page. Here you can give your page a title, just as you would using the <title>…</title> tag in HTML.

The page location is for when your web page is part of a web site running on a local web server. Unless you have this set up then you will need to save your web page As File…

Inserting A Hyperlink Into Your Page

To place a hyperlink in your web page, you can either:

Press Ctrl+K on your keyboard.
Select Hyperlink… from the Insert menu.
Or, press the Create or Edit Hyperlink button on the Standard Toolbar.

Your hyperlink can link to any other open page being edited in FrontPage express, any URL on the World Wide Web or a new web page that has not yet been created.

Inserting An Image Into Your Page

To place an image in your web page, you can either:

Select Image from the Insert menu.
Or, press the Insert Image button on the Standard Toolbar.

An image can be inserted from a file on your local computer to find the desired image browse throught the files and folders on you computer.

Alternatively an image can be linked to from and location on the World Wide Web.

Also Microsoft Clip Art can be used.

Previous page...

Christopher Ward London Limited