[cuttlefish]

I intend starting up a small business on the net and in the past have used Microsoft Publisher that I found reasonably easily but it seems a bit old fashioned compared to the stuff I see around.

I don't want to get involved in HTML language, just something that lets me create a dozen pages or more and keep it fairly simple.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[Gigacore]

Use Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. Its simply superb!

[matt-h]

@ Gigacore - you should really read his whole post you know. Dreamweaver is expensive, the guy just wants a simple site.

@ cuttlefish - here's what I'd do:

Download a free template. There are many around (such as http://openwebdesign.org). Find and download one that you like.

Download Nvu, which is a completely free webpage editor. It's not feature rich like Dreamweaver, but for simple tasks it gets the job done.

Edit the template in Nvu - you can edit all the text and links, add images etc.

If you're wanting to edit the images that come with the template, download Paint.net (a free imaging program) to edit the template images, and to create new ones if you so wish.

Hope this helps

[tex0gen]

Cant afford Dreamweaver? Use notepad.
I downloaded Dreamweaver trial and found it brill... so i .....
Not that i promote that?

[DotHQ]

textpad is a free trial download and a big improvement over notepad.

If you know MS Publisher it is more than capable of creating simple web pages.
Creating web pages and staying out of html is kinda tough. html is a necessary evil if you want to make successful web pages. IMHO.

[Wannano]

I use FrontPage 2003. It's excellent!

[Hughv]

The template idea is the best. There are thousands available.
I use HTML Kit for editing, but you definitely have to know HTML basics to use it.
There are also dozens of free Web site builders available. Google and MS may be among the best.

[caraewilton]

Hi. Thought I would give my two cents worth. If you want an easy to use wysiwyg webpage authoring programme, microsoft frontpage 2000 or 2003 is easy enough to use, although the results do not always look perfect when viewed in firefox or opera browsers. But as the basic setup is similar to word 2003, it is easy to find your way around. Another problem Microsoft are no longer developing frontpage so I am not sure where you can buy it and it will be outdated fairly soon.

In comparison dreamweaver and the like have a steep learning curve although at the end of the day you can do a lot more. As already mentioned, it is expensive.

I have recently been experimenting with coffeecup html 2008.
It only costs $49 which is a pretty fair price. One of the main draw back that I can see it you can't create .css or link style sheets (might be possible, just have not figured it out yet!) But for the rest, it has all the basics.

If you only have a basic knowledge of html and don't want hassles with ftp and the like, the online google page creator works rather nicely. They give a couple of basic templates to choose from and you can literally have a website up and running in hours. What I like the most about google page creator is that you don't have adverts. They offer 100mb file space and a limit of 100 files per site. A person can have up to five different websites. The downside is that you are saddled with a url like name.googlepages.com
You can have your own domain and redirect the page to your google page but this is a little tedious to set up. It also allows html editing so the whole setup becomes very flexible even with only a little html knowledge. I have been experimenting with it for the last couple of weeks and am very pleased with the results. Another draw back though is you can't have folders, but it need not be a problem. It is also 100% free, you only need a gmail account. Oh another negative is the fact that they only support static pages, so no php and sometimes it has the annoying habit of either removing java script or locking the editing of pages with certain javascripts. To counter this you can upload your own html files so if you really want something fancy, this is a work around.

At the end of the day, especially if the website is linked to a business I would go with the suggestion already made. Find a free template you like (there are thousands available just do a search google) and then use coffeecup html 2008 to edit the pages as you desire. Will look more professional. Coffeecup html offers a 30 day trail so you can download the 23mb file and see if it works for you.

[Eriksrocks]

Originally Posted by tex0gen

Cant afford Dreamweaver? Use notepad.
I downloaded Dreamweaver trial and found it brill... so i .....
Not that i promote that?

I wouldn't even hint at piracy if I were you.

[Eriksrocks]

Originally Posted by Wannano

I use FrontPage 2003. It's excellent!

I would highly recommend Dreamweaver over any version of FrontPage.