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Web
Pages the Easy Way But Not the Best Way
If you have
know how to use a word processor like Microsoft Word or Corel Word Perfect
than you can create your web site as easy as creating a document! Simply
create your page as you normally would in your word processor making
sure to include hyperlinks to other pages in the site. When your finished,
simply save it as an html document. Here is what the bottom of the FILE
> SAVE AS menu looks like in Microsoft Word 2000.
Easy enough,
so why doesn't everyone create their web pages this way? This is not
a good way to create web pages for several reasons.
- The
html created by your word processor is not optimized for the web,
it is designed to preserve the formating of your word processor document.
This means that the pages created by your word processor may look
find in some browsers (Internet Explorer for example) but maybe not
others (Netscape Communicator).
- It is
difficult to manage a site, or create optimized images. Your word
processor is simply not set up for this.
Creating
Your Web Pages, A Better Way
Most web
pages are created with software designed to create web pages. This software
creates and edits HTML files. HTML (Hyper Text Mark Up Language) is
the type of file your web browser (i.e. Explorer or Netscape) know how
to read.
Do you need to know HTML? Not really. Although it is helpful. Many web
site design programs work like a word processor. You place your text
and photos on the page and the program will save your work in HTML format.
This type of web site design program is know as a What You See Is What
You Get (WYSIWYG) web site editor. Examples of this are Microsoft FrontPage,
Hot Metal Pro, Symantec Visual Page and on the professional end Adobe
Go Live and Macromedia Dreamweaver. For pure HTML editing there are
some excellent programs such as Homesite (for Windows) and BBE (for
the Mac).
If you want to get your feet wet without spending any money, try the
free web design tool that comes with your Netscape Browser called Netscape
Composer.
For more information on what software to use click
here.
Image
Editing and Manipulation
Most web pages consist of images and text. You will need some type of
software that allows you to size images and save them in a file format
that your web browser can understand.
Both Netscape and Explorer understand at least two image formats. JPEGs
and GIFs. Both of these image types is compressed in order to reduce
the size of their file so you wait seconds instead of minutes for them
to load on your web page. GIFs are ideal for line art, illustrations,
and text that has been "rendered" as an image. JPEGs are ideal
for photographs. For best results, it is important that you become familiar
with these file formats. For more information, see our section on Optimizing
Images on the Web .
There are many programs that allow you to manipulate images and save
them as GIFs and JPEGs for the web. For the beginner, you can use Adobe
Photo Deluxe or Paint Shop Pro. For the professional, use Adobe Photoshop
(version 5.5 or later) or Macromedia Dreamweaver. There are also several
freeware or shareware programs available. You can find many of these
at Winfiles.com .
Coming
Soon.. Another Alternative On-Line Web Building
Acquired Knowledge Systems is planning on featuring an on-line web site
design system that will allow you create web pages directly in Internet
Explorer or Netscape Navigator. We plan on offering this service to
all of our web hosting and Internet access account customers , without
additional charge.
For those planning on doing e-commerce we are going to offer an on-line
web store builder.
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Design and Layout
Next:
Put Your Site On the Web
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