How to use Microsoft FrontPage 2000 - Introduction; Creating a New Document; Opening a Document; Saving Documents; Working With PHP Documents in FrontPage

Contents

Introduction

Creating a New Document

Opening a Document

Saving Documents

Working With PHP Documents in FrontPage

Page Properties

Inserting Bookmarks

Introduction

Microsoft FrontPage is an HTML editor, which is included as part of the Microsoft Office application suite.  If you have Microsoft Office installed, FrontPage was probably installed along with the other applications i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.  FrontPage is a WYSIWYG editor, which stands for 'what you see is what you get'.  This means that FrontPage displays (and allows you to edit) documents as they would appear in a web browser.

This tutorial will show you some common techniques used when editing documents in FrontPage 2000 (version 4.0).

Creating a New Document

To create a new document, click on the 'File' menu and choose 'New' > 'Page...' or press Ctrl+N.  The New dialog box will be displayed:

The New Dialog Box

Generally, you will choose the 'Normal Page' template to create a new blank document, unless you want to use one of the other templates.  Note that pressing Ctrl+N instead of using the menu will open the 'Normal Page' template without displaying the dialog box.  Clicking on the 'New Page' toolbar button will also open the 'Normal Page' template.  Starting FrontPage will also display a new document.

Opening a Document

To open a document, click on the 'File' menu and choose 'Open...' or press Ctrl+O.  The Open dialog box will be displayed.

The file types supported by FrontPage are:

htm, html, shtml, shtm, stm, asp, css, rtf, txt, doc, wk1, wk3, wk4, xls, xlw, mcw, wps, wri

It is possible to open documents from the WWW i.e. you can enter a web address into the Open dialog box.

You can also use the 'Open' toolbar button to open documents.

It is possible to open and work with PHP documents in FrontPage.  See 'Working With PHP Documents in FrontPage' below.

Saving Documents

To save a document, click on the 'File' menu and choose 'Save' or press Ctrl+S.

Although you can open non HTML related documents, you can only save documents in the following formats:

htm, html, shtml, shtm, stm, asp, css, tem, asp, htt

You can also use the 'Save' toolbar button to save documents.

Working With PHP Documents in FrontPage

PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) documents (files ending in .php) are not supported by FrontPage 2000.  This is probably because PHP was not as popular in 2000 as it is now and also because it is not a Microsoft technology.  The .php file extension is not associated with any program in Windows by default, so the first thing to do is to associate it with the 'HTML Document' file type:

1. In the Control Panel, open the 'Folder Options' icon
2. Click on the 'File Types' tab
3. Click on the 'New' button
4. In the 'File Extension:' button type 'php'
5. In the 'Associated File Type:' ComboBox choose 'HTML Document'
6. Click on 'OK' on both dialog boxes

Creating a New File Extension

Unfortunately it is not possible to open PHP files using the 'Open' dialog box (doing so will just load the file in your browser).  Instead you will need to right-click on the file in Windows Explorer and choose 'Edit'.  If FrontPage cannot recognise the file as an HTML document, you will see this dialog box:

Open File As Dialog Box

Make sure the 'HTML' option is selected and press 'OK'.  To create a new PHP document, you will need to do this in Windows Explorer and then open it in FrontPage as shown above.

There is just one more thing to do.  As PHP code includes characters such as '<', '>' etc, you will need to make sure that FrontPage does not automatically convert these characters to codes e.g. '&lt;', '&gt;' etc.  This would render the PHP code useless.  To do this, do the following:

1. In FrontPage, click on the 'Tools' menu and choose 'Page Options...'
2. Click on the 'HTML Source' tab
3. Make sure the 'Preserve existing HTML' option is selected
4. Click on 'OK'

Occasionally, FrontPage will convert some PHP characters into HTML codes.  Click on the 'HTML' tab and check your PHP code before saving.

Next - Page Properties

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© Martin Allen 1999 - 2011.  Last updated Sunday 07 August 2011 10:43:22 PM +0100.