Acquaint Yourself with FrontPage

FrontPage comprises all the tools you need to create, publish, and manage a World Wide Web site. Each of these tools is integrated into a single program, which is one of those good news, bad news kind of things.

The bad news is that there are a large number of things to learn about this all-in-one software package. Creating, publishing, and managing a Web site are all substantive tasks that have traditionally been handled by several different types of software: page editors, file transfer programs, hyperlink verifiers, and more.

The good news: You don't have to learn the quirks of several different programs or keep track of which program handles which task. Learning to use FrontPage is like learning to use Microsoft Word; although Word has hundreds of different features, the basic mechanics of creating and editing a document are fairly simple. You type text into a window, click a few buttons or menu options to format the text, and save your work. You can start using Word long before you have mastered its more sophisticated features.

Although most people call a collection of related Web pages a Web site, Microsoft FrontPage refers to them as Webs . This term is used throughout the book, because you'll be encountering it often when using the software and its built-in help system.