To Do: Create Your First Web Page

To get an idea of how simple it is to create Web pages with FrontPage 2003, and to see how much work FrontPage does behind your back that you don't have to, you can create a simple Web page from scratch to watch FrontPage in action.

Follow these steps to begin your Web page:

Select File, New to display the New Page or Web Site task pane.
Select Blank Page to generate a blank Web page. As Figure Web 1.4 shows, FrontPage begins in Design view and shows your blank page.

Figure Web 1.4. FrontPage begins in Design view.
Click the Code button in the lower-left corner to select the Code view. You see that FrontPage shows any and all HTML code behind the blank page. Listing Web 1.3 shows this code that appears on your screen. Even though the Web page is still blank, HTML code is behind the page. FrontPage has added a few extra codes that go beyond the minimum shown in Listing Web 1.3, but basically the HTML is sparse because the Web page is still blank.

Listing Web 1.3 FrontPage Adds Some HTML Codes Automatically, but Your Blank Web Page Does Not Have Much HTML at This Time

 <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;  charset=windows-1252"> <title>New Page 1</title> </head> <body> </body> </html>

Although this seems like much discussion about HTML, the goal is to demonstrate that a few short years ago you had to write your own HTML code to generate a blank Web page, whereas FrontPage generates the code for you and makes things much easier. As you add text and more to this Web page between now and the rest of the chapter, you will better appreciate that FrontPage does so much for you.

Figure Web 1.4. FrontPage begins in Design view.

Listing Web 1.3 FrontPage Adds Some HTML Codes Automatically, but Your Blank Web Page Does Not Have Much HTML at This Time