Introduction

Web publishing has changed dramatically in the years since the first sites appeared on the Internet cyberfrontier. Like anything else new and experimental, the Web has had its high-tech equivalent of strange fashions, bad hair days, and utter lawlessness. If you're just getting into Web publishing now, you may feel as though you've missed the boat. In fact, you've missed a lot of hassle-browser wars, shifty HTML code, and creaky, hard-to-use Web publishing software. Now is as good a time as any to stake your claim on the Web.

What's more, you're already a step ahead: You chose Expression Web. The Microsoft development team who birthed this baby adopted a just-sayno-to-nonstandard-Web-site-building approach when designing Expression Web. They've incorporated the latest and best in Web building practices and technologies to help you, the Web designer, build Web sites that not only look and work great but also hum with the precision of a German luxury vehicle.

Yet if you've never built a Web site, or even if you have but don't have a clue what Microsoft means by those buzzwords on the Expression Web box-standards-driven, Cascading Style Sheets, and the like-you're not alone. Microsoft Expression Web For Dummies is here to help.

About this Book

Expression Web is a hefty piece of software capable of building Web sites that range from a few basic pages to immense, data-driven powerhouses. We assume that you fall somewhere in the middle: You want to use Expression Web to build a well-designed, easy-to-navigate Web site, not become an expert on databases. In this book, we focus on the information you need to know: how to fill your site with text and graphics and how to link pages, build forms, and do even more-and have it all look good.

We believe that you'll find Web site building easier and more enjoyable if you understand and feel comfortable with how your site is put together. So, throughout this book, we introduce you to the code that works behind the scenes. And because we give the code to you in little bits, you may not even notice that you're getting up to speed on HTML and CSS.

If you're a complete Web-building newbie, you may want to skim this book to get a sense of what building a Web site entails, and then read the stuff that looks useful. If you need a little help with the code terminology, give the first part of Chapter 14 a read-through. If you've already tried your hand at site building, you can use Microsoft Expression Web For Dummies as a reference manual. Skip around and read the parts that interest you.