Anyone try MS word HTML doc

[Freakindj]

I don't have Front Page or any other good HTML program so i have been trying MS Word HTML to write my pages. The formatting is easy and I can quickly produce a fairly descent looking page, but I am having a problem with the "meta" tags and "discription" tag. Also the Word Density tool does not see my .img alt tags nor the h1, h2 tags

When I view the code I can see they are there but the Word Density or Meta Tag tools do not recognise them. Does any one have any suggestions?

[agpawa]

Depending on your level of comfort with HTML, I would suggest creating the pages using only a text editor. MS Word was not designed to output html....and does a pretty crappy job of creating web pages ( adds many unnecessary tags, table layout and css output is very unintuitive). I would also warn against using FrontPage because of the unnecessary custom tags added.

If you feel that designing a page from scratch is too difficult, you may want to try laying out your pages in MS Word just to get an idea of how the page will look visually...then recreating the layout in HTML. This would be a good exercise in learning HTML and you would end up with much cleaner HTML code in the end.

[Freakindj]

Thanks

I have written several from scratch but they are lacking in quality that is for sure. I am experimenting around trying to find a happy medium I am comfortable with.

[Freakindj]

I think i have it right now.

I reopened with a html editor and added the correct doc type, discription tag, and meta tags. I tried adding the alt tags for the imgs in the html editor but some times it worked other times it didn't. found out where in word I was able to add the alt tags and that works fine now.

But removing all the MS smart tags killed the program pretty quickly. Over all it is NO FASTER trying to write pages with it then writing from scratch.

Thanks for the help just thought I would keep you guys posted

[Cyber-SEO]

There are a bunch of free editors out there that don't add all the extra stuff in there. Front page will do the same thing but it will do it less. Try googling something like "Windows HTML Editor" see what you find.

[eitemiller]

Crimson Editor is a favorite of mine, when I am not using notepad...

[nrlatsha]

[QUOTE=Freakindj]Thanks

I have written several from scratch but they are lacking in quality that is for sure. I am experimenting around trying to find a happy medium I am comfortable with.[/QUOTE]Somebody somewhere said this before, I apologize for not remembering who to give the props to...

They said something like, "Create a page in something, paint shop pro, or your head for example, and get it to exactly what you want to see, then write HTML to get it to look like that, its much easier than designing while writing, at least for those of us new to writing web pages."

And use notepad or something dreamweaver like, only for the syntax highlighting though... I used to use notepad, but found those little colors go a long way.

[seojoe]

Honestly I prefer using Dreamweaver (by far). Its code is pretty compliant and you can reate some kick ass pages relatively quickly. The days of notepad are LONG gone. You should be able tp ick up a pirated version of DW pretty much anywhere if you cant afford it, ofcourse you didnt hear that from me.

[eitemiller]

[QUOTE=seojoe]The days of notepad are LONG gone.[/QUOTE]

Yea, but old habits are hard to break. I have checked out DreamWeaver, and admit it looks like a decent program. Hella lot better than FrontPage, lol. I bet if I played with it for a day, I'd be able to get real comfortable with it.

[seojoe]

Its funny you say that lol :P. I used to be a DIE HARD Front Page GURU and would have bitch slapped anyone who downtalked it. I then switched jobs to a company who didnt have front page but had DW. I didnt have my trusty bundle of "software" on me at the time so was forced to use it for a day, and the rest my friend is history. Once I got used to it I was instantly hooked and havent looked back since :). If you havent tried the newest version (7 I think), you dont know what you are missing. Simply amazing.

PS. I do not work for DW in any way lol. I just know good software when I see it :)

[eitemiller]

Well, I will download a copy and give it a shot this weekend. I probably havent look at it in two years, so I am sure I'll be surprised.

Can't believe you stuck up for FrontPage so hard. You do know Microsoft sucks, dont you? :)

[seojoe]

It may suck, but its not going away anytime soon and it does the job 99% of the time. I think there will always be a place in my heart for their products :o

[reli4nt]

I am a FrontPage refugee.

I learned to use DW because I was so frustrated with Frontpage. Then I learned to code and I realized that while DW is better by far, pretty decent in all as far as generating code, nothing beats hand coding.

Even if you dont use the WYSIWYG feature or the layout features of DW its worth it for the extent it makes hand coding easier and quicker.

[jlknauff]

[QUOTE=Freakindj]Does any one have any suggestions?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, don't use Word :p

[Freakindj]

Thanks guys

On your recomendation I'll give the Dreamweaver a spin. This whole webbin thing is more of a hobby but I am difinitly hooked.

I have been learning html, sql, php, adobe photoshop / imageready. The shot at playing with word was just trying to give my brain a rest.

So far I have been able to start cranking out some good looking graphics and the overall look of my sites is improving. The book mark rate is staying in the double digits now and the traffic is trending UP.

[wyrickj]

I would like to point out that Dreamweaver MX 2004 is very very weak for Server Side Programming. I designed my directory with it and I did not like it at all. I do have VB.NET but does not connect to any SQL Servers as it's the cheapest version of VB.NET so I had no choice besides Dreamweaver.

Dreamweaver rocks however for layout/design. I use it all the time.

[reli4nt]

Good luck to you