Ensure Functionality by Cleaning Up Your HTML

If you have used FrontPage in the past, you may be aware that older versions of the software created HTML code that was difficult to scan, and contained plenty of unnecessary commands when you made changes to a page in Design View. You no longer have to worry about what constitutes clean HTML, or whether your HTML will be accepted by all browsers. FrontPage now cleans up the HTML that is automatically generated when you craft a page in Design View, or that you import from a Word file. You also have the ability to clean up your code, whether it s on the local version of your site or on a remote Web server. You can even identify individual tags, such as comments, attributes, or HTML white space, and have FrontPage clean it with just a few mouse clicks.

Keeping Your Local HTML Clean for Your Co-workers

Before you publish your Web site (a process described in Chapter 17, Publishing Your Web Site ), it s a good idea to remove any unnecessary or unorthodox HTML commands that may have been introduced by other editors, or by programs like Microsoft Word, which may generate their own HTML. To clean up the HTML on the local version of your site (the files you maintain on your own computer, as opposed to the remote Web server), follow these steps:

1. Choose File, Save to save your changes on all the pages you have open in the FrontPage window.

2. Choose Tools, Optimize HTML.

3. In the Optimize HTML dialog box, select the HTML elements you want to remove, and click to deselect any that you want to maintain.

4. Click OK.

You might have to wait a minute or two as FrontPage automatically cleans up your code.

Synchronizing Your Code Edits on Your Remote Site

If you have cleaned up the HTML on the local version of your site, but you haven t cleaned up the published version on your Web server, don t worry. You don t need to re-publish all of your newly-optimized pages. Just tell FrontPage to clean up the remote version of your site by choosing View, Remote Web Site to switch to Remote Web Site View. Click Optimize Remote HTML. In the Optimize HTML dialog box, check the elements you want removed, then click OK.

Aha!  

Clean Up Your HTML Consistently
Click Set As Default in the Optimize HTML dialog box to apply your HTML clean-up settings to your site whenever you publish it.