FrontPage Hints and Tips to Live By

Here are the top hints and tips to remember about FrontPage 2000.

Working with FrontPage Webs

1. Typically you'll want to create a new one page web and build from there. Use the File | New | Web command, and the New dialog box will appear. Choose One Page Web. Then choose an appropriate title (such as "Human Resources Home Page") for the entire web, then change the URL to something easy to type (use the Change button).
2. NO SPACES (or weird punctuation) IN FILENAMES (or urls)! Be careful with the filenames you use in any "location" or file dialog box. Lower case is always best.
3. Always save all pages before making sweeping changes (such as the spell check, publishing, or renaming a file).
4. Deleting a Web is final! There's no undo, and no recycle bin.

Hints for using the Editor

1. Use a good title for each page, such as "Acme Human Resources: Staff Page". A default name like "Home Page" is terrible. Use the File | Properties menu to change the web page's title, or switch to the Folders view if you want to see a list (then right-click on each file to change the title).
2. Anytime you want to edit something special, remember to right-click on it and choose the properties command from the shortcut menu.
3. Don't use underlining -- it's confused easily with a link.
4. Fonts and colors and sizes are only a suggestion -- individual people will have different fonts and resolution and colors available. Keep the contrast high for your backgrounds. Make your font choices as general as possible -- use <FONT FACE="verdana,arial,helvetica,universe"> in the HTML view to maximize compatibility. Avoid special effects that only look good on a single browser.
5. In general, use percentages rather than pixels. After all, you have no idea what size screen is being used.
6. Don't forget to set a background color -- the default background is gray for Netscape Navigator 3 and Internet Explorer 3. Consider making your entire site share a single document's colors. Use easy-to-read colors with plenty of contrast. If you set the background, also set a contrasting text color and link colors. It's a good idea to explicitly set the defaults.
7. Remember which features are IE-only (marquees, page margins, background sounds, etc.) -- see the reference sheet.
8. Preview EVERYTHING in both Navigator and IE. In fact, get as many browsers (and different versions of browsers) as you can. Borrow a Macintosh and see how your page looks from a Mac.

Hints for using Themes

1. You give up a lot of control with themes -- you can't change the background, and you'll lose any existing page colors and backgrounds.
2. Themes create a HUGE number of files in your Web, which you can't delete even if you later remove the theme. This means your Web will take longer to publish.
3. Changing themes adds more files that can't easily be deleted, making your Web larger.
4. Everyone's themes all look the same. Even though there's lots of themes, people will still get to know them and recognize that you're using a canned theme. You can modify a theme if you want to make your own.

Hints for the Image Composer

1. Did you remember to change to 100% view?
2. Save two copies of every image you work on: One in the MIC format so you can go back to the original and modify it, one for the Web (either GIF or JPG).
3. Anything outside the white box will not be visible in a GIF or JPG.
4. Always use Image Composer as a separate program, don't try to integrate it with FrontPage. Save your work separately, then insert it in FrontPage using the Insert | Picture | From File command.
5. Remember to right-click to see properties.

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