A great tool to quickly create a website (MS Office FrontPage 2003)

Member Name: matt2008

Product:	MS Office FrontPage 2003
Date:	16/06/08 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Familiar Interface, easy to move and position elements

Disadvantages: Doesn't produce great browser rendition, no great flexibility for coders

Microsoft FrontPage 2003 has a great combination of tools and features for anybody who wants to create a website. Although the product from Microsoft may not be to the same high standards as DreamWeaver from Adobe it provides an easy to use interface much common with those of the other office 2003 series and is competitively priced.

When opening the software you will find that it is very easy to use with the main tools and functions located on the main toolbar for easy access.

With this version you can easily create a website within a few minutes by using existing templates readily available within the software. Although the style may appear out of date it is easy to create your own using tables and dragging text and images around the page for a suitable style. This is the main benefit with this software - it is very easy to use.

In addition to this, by this program being part of the MS Office series images can be copied and placed from different applications into your page.

There is also a suitable preview tab on the bottom toolstrip enabling you to quickly view your website without having to close the program and opening it within your browser.

However if you are more technically challanged and are competent with working with web languages you can use the code view to program with syntax highlighting meaning it is very easy to use and understand the different styles used without your code.

In addition to this the split view enables the coder to work within a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment as well as having the chance to edit the code at the same time.

Additionally the program enables users to quickly add multimedia elements and forms within the website however some of this functionality requires Frontpage extensions - which some Web hosts do not provide the opportunity to use.

However MS FrontPage does have its disadvantages. Firstly some of the layouts may not look correct in a variety of browsers, however it does do a very good job working well in versions of Internet Explorer, the web browser from Microsoft and luckily the market leader. Also for developers only a variety of languages which have syntax highlighting are support so the ever popular PHP language will not be color coded.

Overall i think that MS FrontPage is an excellent choice for anybody who wants to create their own website with ease but for the more advanced user there is some more powerful, if not pricier options available.

Summary: A good product for the novice user with an easy to use interface at a good price

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