Welcome to FrontPad
Welcome to Microsoft FrontPad

FrontPad is a Web-page editor that gives you full access to the power of HTML, in an easy-to-use interface. It also works with the Web View Wizard to edit and enhance the Web View content and display of your folders.

FrontPad offers many of the features of the Microsoft FrontPage Editor, in a smaller package. As your Web publishing needs and skills grow, you can too, without having to learn a new program or method of creating Web pages. It's easy to move up to FrontPage and the added features of the FrontPage Editor, Personal Web Server, and FrontPage Explorer. For more information about editing Web View content, and FrontPage, click Related Topics below.

 Related Topics


Editing Web View content
Editing Web View content on your computer

When you display the contents of your computer in Web View, you can customize any folder's background, name, and icon groupings by using the Web View wizard and FrontPad. The Web View wizard provides the basic templates which enable you to customize any folder. FrontPad provides additional customization capabilities, such as inserting links to Internet Mail and News and other Windows shell components.


Creating Web pages the easy way

FrontPad creates and formats Web pages in HTML, but enables you to work with them in a WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") view, so you can see your formatting and layout as it will appear when viewed using a Web browser such as Internet Explorer.

Work with new or existing Web pages

You can create a new Web page just as you would create any other type of document.

You can open existing Web pages directly from the Web (if you have the Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard installed) or from a file on your computer or a network.

You can save your work directly to the Web (using the Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard) or to a file.

See your formatting, layout, and design as you work

You can select text or paragraphs, and apply formatting and alignment with a click of a button.

You can apply HTML tags from the drop-down list on the toolbar, without having to manually insert HTML tags.

You can either insert images that you've created or clip-art from your favorite collections (collections are not included with FrontPad).

You can add marquees (scrolling text).


Advanced FrontPad features
Advanced features

You can make your Web pages sophisticated and powerful with FrontPad's easy-to-use features:

You can add background colors and watermarks.

You can use WebBot components to add rich functionality without complex programming. FrontPad includes WebBots that place Include, Time Stamp, and Search features in your Web pages. (To get a full range of WebBots, such as forms handling, navigation bars, and more, you can upgrade to Microsoft FrontPage).

You can use ActiveX controls to extend the power of your Web page.

You can insert new HTML tags as they become available, using the HTML Markup command.

You can view and edit all HTML tags directly on the page. The color coding in FrontPad makes it easy to distinguish tags from content.

 Related Topics


Hypertext Markup Language. The industry-standard language for describing the contents and layout of a Web page. FrontPad reads and writes HTML documents.


A dynamic object on a Web page runs when the author saves the page to the Web server or, in some cases, when the reader views the page.


Moving up to FrontPage
Moving up to Microsoft FrontPage

FrontPad has a Microsoft Office–compatible interface and a design based on FrontPage Editor in Microsoft FrontPage. Microsoft FrontPage is a complete package for Web page authors and Web-site administrators. FrontPad and FrontPage are a great combination for organizations where individuals' needs vary from simple viewing and editing (FrontPad) to unlimited editing, viewing, and Web administration (FrontPage).

FrontPage includes:

FrontPage Editor, which enables you to create, view, and save HTML pages. It includes templates, wizards, and WebBots that enable you to easily create powerful Web pages. Because it also acts as a mini-browser, you can use FrontPage Editor to import pages from anywhere on the Internet or an intranet.

FrontPage Explorer, which enables you to administer, view, and manipulate a Web site. You can develop and test a Web site on your personal computer and then copy the entire site to a Web server. Or you can use FrontPage Explorer as a personal Web server to run a Web site directly from your desktop, either as part of an intranet or as a public site on the global Internet.