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FrontPage Tips

News

Microsoft FrontPage and Microsoft Expression Web

Recommended Books

Recommended Links Frontpage Regular Expressions Frontpage Stored Queries
Usage of the Frontpage Folder List and View Optimizing HTML FrontPage Macro Programming FrontPage 2003 Cheat sheet Frontpage Keyboard Shortcuts Code Snippets
Search & Replace Microsoft Frontpage support of stylesheets Customization Microsoft Windows Keyboard remapping Using FrontPage reports to better manage your site Frontpage as a poor man personal knowledge management system
Frontpage The server "" timed out error FP Cleaner Utility AutoHotkey Logitech Setpoint Microsoft IntelliType Macros ePUB Format
Programmable Keyboards Logitech G510s Gaming Keyboard Logitech G13 Programmable Gameboard with LCD Display Sidewinder Pro Logitech G600 Gaming Mouse Logitech G-keyboards LUA Scripting
Frontpage customization List of Special Files and Direct Self Publishers and On Demand Publishing Frontpage history Humor Etc

Introduction

Although Frontage is an easy to use GUI tool to create WebPages it has a second dimension: under the disguise of easy to use tool Microsoft created a very powerful, flexible and rather inexpensive (comparing with Dreamweaver) professional HTML editor. And despite much lower price it is iether competitive or  beats Dreamweaver is many, if not most aspects of Web Page development.

Important: FP creates several sets of temporary files and after crashes they need to be manually cleaned using FP Cleaner Utility. You need to schedule this operation monthly.

It is important to understand that FrontPage is a complex professional Web authoring software and it takes years of practice to learn to do certain things efficiently in it. 

While there are several good books devoted to FrontPage, no amount of documentation can explain all the interesting/practically useful combinations of facilities that arise (may be sometimes appear inadvertently as a side effects even for the designers of the program). Also the set of features you need and use heavily depends on your particular set of web activities. For example, I never used Frontpage extensions and for me Frontpage is just a powerful HTML editor.  Such a powerful editor, that probably no single human can learn all its capabilities ;-)   And despite the fact that I use Frontage daily for almost 20 years (starting from early 1997),  I still find new tips almost weekly and actually dramatically improved my work habits during the last five years.

Of cause many tips that I discover are not exactly new. Large part of them are those that I already discovered, but forgot ;-). The propblem with such large and complex editor that you never remember everything and things that you do not use often fade into obsolesce. But some tips I am still discovering are really new. Around once a year I discover a tip that is extremely useful in raising my productivity.  I just stream "Why I did not know this much earlier; it would save me so much time and effort".  And I think I am not alone in this situation. That's why I created this page.

Here we are discussing FrontPage 2003 -- the last version of Frontpage created my Microsoft. This is a pretty well debugged product that is really stable. All Frontpage versions are upward compatible: In most cases new capabilities introduced in earlier versions, say FrontPage 2002, survive in later versions -- Frontpage 2003. You can open a web site created with earlier version with a new version of Frontpage without problems. In most cases the reverse operation also works. This compatibility was also preserved in Microsoft Expression Web: you can open and edit sites created with Frontpage with Microsoft Expression Web and vise versa.

There are several Frontpage customizations that help you to reach maximum productivity (see also Customization

There are two hardware peaces that are also important: 24" display (or better two or three) and programmable keyboard with programmable mouse. (see Usage of programmable keyboard and high end mice below)

Keyboard shortcuts

Like other Office applications, Frontpage has a complex set of Keyboard Shortcuts, which are an important productivity tool. And it makes a lot of sense to spend some time and effort in learning them and create your own cheatsheet, which you can put over the monitor.

The first and the most important thing is to install RandyRants SharpKeys -- the utility that provides GUI for remapping of keys. And then remap CapsLock to Ctrl in Windows registry (yes this is built-in feature of Windows).   This is a well known blunder in the design of IBM keyboard that, thanks God, is easily correctable.

The first and the most important thing is to install RandyRants SharpKeys -- the utility that provides GUI for remapping of keys. And then remap CapsLock to Ctrl in Windows registry (yes this is built-in feature of Windows).   This is a well known blunder in the design of IBM keyboard that, thanks God, is easily correctable.

That makes shortcuts such as Ctrl-F and Ctrl-H much more convenient.

It is very important distinguish between vital but non-obvious shortcuts and "junk" shortcuts.  Among non-obvious shortcuts that have potential to enhance your productivity I would mention the following (of course this is highly subjective rating):

Those are mostly unique for FrontPage. In order to train  yourself to use them printing "cheat-sheets"  an putting it over the monitor might be helpful, otherwise you soon forget the shortcut and return to an old way of doing the same staff.  Printed cheatsheet serves as your long-term memory and you can gradually polish it. It is important to limit yourself to just one double spaced sheet (say 20 shortcuts).  Excessive zeal in using shortcuts in counterproductive.  See also Frontpage Tips

Excessive zeal in using shortcuts in counterproductive. Limit yourself to only those few that really matter (less then 20). Usage of cheat-sheet in a mouse pad or over the display is a must.

Many Frontpage keystrokes are consistent with other members of Microsoft Office family such as MS Word and Excel so as such they are easier to remember then unique for FrontPage keystrokes.  Here Microsoft has done an excellent job in unifying interfaces between components of the Office (generally Office is a masterpiece of Microsoft software; more so then Windows). Among those that matter we can mention:

Usage of programmable keyboard and high end mice

Optimal keyboard for Frontpage is programmable keyboard. There are several good choices in medium (below $100) price range of keyboards that work well with Frontpage and that I used successfully for a long time:

If you get one of those combinations you can create your own shortcuts using  iether

Intellitype macros on Microsoft keyboard

or  or any other programmable keyboard (Logitech G510s can also be recommended). Actually for a professional it does not make sense to use Frontpage without programmable keyboard, as Frontpage macros are not very well designed and writing them require good knowledge of VB. It makes sense  to dedicate one button on such keyboard to the "macro of the day" which changes depending on the task you are performing.  If you do it consistently soon you develop the ability to catch common set of keystrokes in you current day activities very quickly and automate then as the matter of habit.  Several other pres set macros are also useful as they allow you to replace frequent operations with a single keystroke. For example

For heavy laptop users, instead of external keyboard programs such as AutoHotkey can be used instead. So instead of using built-in macro capabilities (which, with the exception of Frontpage Search and Replace macros leave much to be designed) you can use Expect style tool, such as AutoHotkey. To train yourself, try to edit documents using FrontPage without macros for a week or two. You will be surprised how much you would learn ;-).

Usage of advanced mouse

On a typical mouse you do not use more the standard buttons as additional buttons are inconveniently positioned (typically two buttons on the left upper edge of the mouse). But there are several high end multibutton  mice that make usage of additional buttons convenient. I strongly recommend you to buy such a mouse and assign additional two shortcuts to those programmable buttons. Selection of the mouse is a highly individual activity and much depends on the size of your hands and the way to hold the mouse. Among those models that I can recommend are:

Learning keyboard hotkeys

Like all other Office programs  Microsoft Frontpage possesses elaborate and well designed set of hotkeys. The problem is that it is difficult to learn and when you learn them and do not use it you forget efficient hotkey combination in a couple of days and return to "good, old" methods using mouse that you get accustomed before.

Try to work in FrontPage without a mouse for an hour at least one day a week. Just disconnect the mouse and try to perform you regular work.  You will re-learn more useful keyboard shortcuts that any cheat sheet can offer ;-)

Try to work in FrontPage without a mouse for several days. You will learn more useful keyboard shortcuts that any cheat sheet can offer ;-)

Code Snippets

A very powerful tool for any competent Web designer is FrontPage Code Snippets, a mechanism by which you can insert into your HTML predefined static fragments such as reference to style sheet, prolog of the page, epilog of the page, iframes, custom dividing line (<hr> with necessary tags), etc.

You can't assign keyboard shortcuts to Frontpage snippets in Frontpage itself and here is another situation when programmable keyboard is very useful. You can also use Clipboard manager as a supplementary tool.  I recommend  ArsClip

Some recently discovered " extremely useful" tips

Despite my almost ten years experience with FrontPage I periodically find some drastically better ways to perform some common operations in FrontPage, ways that would save me dozens of hours if I knew them before.

And what is more upsetting is that some of those tricks I used to know, but simply forgot and returned to more primitive and worse way of doing this operation. That where this Tips Page came into play :-). It helps me to remember those possibilities, that are so easy to forget.

Notes:

Troubleshooting Tips

Like all other Office 2003 components FrontPage 2003 is a very reliable product taking into account its complexity. Microsoft was a king of complexity until probably 2007 and only later was buried by the tower of complexity it build (tremendous fiasco of IE 10 and 11; questionable quality of Windows 7, etc). In the past the fact that it manages to debug such monsters of Excel, Ms Word and FrontPage used to tell us something about organization of debugging in Microsoft.  No more. Now they deteriorate to the level of Lou Gerstner IBM level (yes, this bankster from American Express, who understood nothing in computers) or worse, when the key power is just power of marketing and financial racket...

Among those that I experienced are:

  1. Frontpage The server "" timed out error. I have found that Frontpage The server "" timed out error happens periodically on large Web sites. It's the most nasty problem you can experience with Frontpage if you have a large web site.

    FP creates several sets of temporary files and after crashes they need to manually cleaned using FP Cleaner Utility. You need to schedule this operation at least monthly and also use it after each Frontpage crash.
     

  2. Also sometimes the editor is stuck and stops behaving properly. Reformatting the text in code view (Right mouse click-M) cure this situation...
     
  3. Incorrect paste operation (blanks replaced with %20 and formatting lost) or refusal to paste a fragment. If during paste operation text is pasted with %20 instead of blanks that means that HTML in the fragment you are trying to paste is incorrect (sometimes in such case FrontPage generally refuse to paste anything). You can try paste source. But often situation is sticky and require restart of FrontPage to clean.
  4. If you have Folder List (left pane) opened, sometimes wrong click moved the current folder up the tree into the next folder, making it a subfolder of the next folder. Frontpage corrects all links in the process. But if subtree is large moving back it to "proper" place does not always restore links. Some links became mangled. In this case it is better to restore subtree from the backup and then move manually only files recently changed.  For your safely keep Folder list most time closed (open close of Fonder list is controlled by Alt-F1). It also occupy valuable real estate on the screen, so when you do not use it it's better to keep it hidden. 

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NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

[Sep 19, 2018] You can use icons create file and create foled in folder list to place file in some deeply nesested folder. This is more convenient then browsing the directory tree in save dialog.

[Sep 19, 2018] You can try to use stored search and replace operation in Design view.

Not all of them work but, for example, replacing one tag to another works in design view and is much more convenient this way.

[Aug 26, 2018] Can I run MS Front Page 2003 on Windows 10

Notable quotes:
"... Although FrontPage was not evaluated, Andre Da Costa found that core programs of Office such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Publisher back through Office 2000 work just fine on Windows 10. ..."
Aug 26, 2018 | answers.microsoft.com
They changed the title of my original post so I thought I'd try it again: I Know that my web sites will work on windows 10 but:

I run a website I started in 1996, 385 pages and built with old school html and (when it came out) MS Front Page. I've modified many pages of these old pages to be w3c compliant using good old html. It is super hot in the search engines and works excellent in all browsers and on all mobile devices. Front Page 2003 is like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes. Yes, I've tried Dream Weaver and all the other "options" but it doesn't do a very good job with the original code, in fact some of the modifications and programs I have tried have been a disaster. SO I'm currently running windows 7 with the xp package to support Microsoft Front Page Version 2003. My server guys have no issues with the MS Front Page Extensions and it is very fast and stable. What do you think the chances are of running MS Front Page 2003 on Windows 10? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Original Title: FrontPage 2003

DavidF2

Though MS does indeed say that FP is not compatible (MS says that versions of Office older that Office 2007 are incompatible with Win10.) , that does not mean that it will not install and run. You might be happily surprised. In my experience MS tends to discourage the use of older programs even if they will run.

Although FrontPage was not evaluated, Andre Da Costa found that core programs of Office such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Publisher back through Office 2000 work just fine on Windows 10.

Reference: A look at running older versions of Microsoft Office on Windows 10: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_10-win_upgrade/a-look-at-running-older-versions-of-microsoft/6faf72ea-254a-4c8e-9982-2c36cdb1936c

With that said if you are dependent upon FPSE then you might start looking for an alternative to FP. MS quit support of the server extensions many years ago and the number of web hosts that offer them are becoming few and far between.

Eventually you should plan on them not being available and should start looking to migrate your sites to another program. Better now before it is too late.

DavidF

[Aug 26, 2018] How to Set Compatibility Mode for Apps in Windows 10 by Melanie Pinola

Running Frontpage2003 on windows 10 requires using compatibility mode. Some features like "Most recent files" do not work even with this mode.
Aug 24, 2015 | www.laptopmag.com

Most software created for previous versions of Windows run well in Windows 10, but you might have some older apps that don't work well or even at all with the new operating system. You can try to fix any issues you have running these older desktop programs in Windows 10 by changing their compatibility mode settings.

Windows has a built-in tool called Program Compatibility Troubleshooter that could automatically fix any compatibility problems for you. If the troubleshooter can't fix the problem, you can manually make an app run in compatibility mode, which will run the app using the settings from an earlier version of Windows. You can have the troubleshooter automatically search for apps that could have issues in Windows 10 or manually run the troubleshooter on a specific app. Here's how to do both.

How to Use Windows' Program Compatibility Troubleshooter

1. In the taskbar search box, enter "run programs", then click "Run programs made for previous versions of Windows."

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2. Click Next and the troubleshooter will try to detect potential issues with your apps.
1440447315 528.74812030075403

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3. Select the app that's having issues in the next window and click Next.
select app

4. Select a troubleshooting option: use the recommended compatibility setting or choose compatibility settings yourself.
Try recommended

If you choose to use the recommended settings, the troubleshooter will test the app using a previous version of Windows so you can see if that resolves the issue.

test compatibiilty

If you choose the choose to troubleshoot the app, the troubleshooter will ask you which problems you're experiencing. Depending on your selection, the troubleshooter will offer tests and suggestions to resolve the problem, such as testing the display settings for the app.

select problems

5. Click the Test the program button and then click Next.

You can then either choose to save the settings for the app, try different settings, or report the problem to Microsoft and view help articles online.

Choose settings

You'll have to run the troubleshooter for each app you're having compatibility problems with.

MORE: Windows 10 Settings You Should Change Right Away

How to Run an App in Compatibility Mode

Alternatively, you can go into a app's properties to change its compatibility mode settings. With compatibility mode, you can force an app to use settings from an earlier version of Windows -- helpful if you know the app ran well in, say, Windows 7 or Vista. You can also change the display and color settings for the app.

1. Right-click on an app and select Properties. You can do this from the app's shortcut or by navigating in File Browser to the EXE file.

select properties

2. Select the Compatibility tab, then check the box next to "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"
check run as

3. S elect the version of Windows to use for your app's settings in the dropdown box.
select windows version

4. Hit Apply , then run your app and see if this fixed your issues.

""

[Aug 26, 2018] FrontPage to Windows 10

Notable quotes:
"... I have MS Expressions Web 4 which is now free as MS is discontinuing it, and it's running on a Windows 10 PC. I used FP, but this upgrade is now free. ..."
Jul 29, 2015 | msdn.microsoft.com

Question

I have been a happy user of FrontPage. Bought 2007 Expression Web and it worked fine with my Windows XP Professional.
I have not used it all since 2008 and want your recommendations what to do as I want to start using Expression Web again making changes to my different Web Pages.
I want to use my new laptop today with windows 8.1, that I will upgrade to Windows 10 in the near future.

I read about all the problems Windows 8,1 has occurred and I want to be free from that that's why I would be very pleased to get your professional recommendations what to do.

Thankful for your advise

Hans Trim Wednesday

[Feb 28, 2018] You can use reports for seeing recently modified files. But for a large website this is pretty slow

[Feb 28, 2018] You can use multiple windows for the same website, position them on different areas/folders of the site and transfer files between them. Open new window with Window/new window.

Very useful for transferring multiple files from one directory to another.

There is also option of opening a file in a new window

[Apr 12, 2016] CTRL+O Opens a Web page. In combination with recent pages can be used for quick accessing recent folders and the most recent pages.

[Apr 12, 2016] Using shortcuts for find

[Sep 07, 2015] Using special mouse button as save button for Frontpage.

One of the major deficiencies of Frontpage is absence of autosave. That means that if Frontpage froze or your tower computer lost power, you can lose all your work in opened but not saved pages.
There are multiple ways to alleviate this problem. Here is the most recent tip which involves using mouse that have more buttons than standard. In this case one button can be assigned to save.

Using G-510s Logitech keyboard or any other programmable keyboard you can define macros

This trick also works well with

if you assign Ctrl-F, Ctrl-H and Ctrl-K to special buttons.

[Jun 13, 2015] Alt-F10 open Visual Basic editor in Frontage

[Jun 13, 2015] You can drag a file from folder list of the open Frontpage site into the open page in another open Frontage site. In this case path will be pasted

[Jun 13, 2015] You can use "save as" to rename open file on the disk.

[Mar 02, 2015] Ctrl-? toggle show of HTML tags in design view. Very convenient for understanding where if you insert something in the text

[Feb 03, 2015] F3 in find dialog search the next occurrence of the string. Ctrl-F change focus from dialog to text allowing you to perform edits without closing find dialog. Esc in find dialog close the dialog.

Generally you can program auto closing of tag for any type of fragments in which you can find end by search. for example to enclose table into <center> tags you need the following

  1. type <center>

  2. Ctrl-F3

  3. Type </table

  4. Enter

  5. Ctrl-F3 # change focus to code view

  6. End # get to the end of </table> tag

  7. Enter # get new line

  8. Type </center>

  9. Ctrl-F3 # change focus back to find dialog

  10. Esc # close find dialog

[Feb 02, 2015] You can perform multiple stored search and replace operations using macros or programmable keyboard

Actually you can write a script that coverts set of search and replace operating into a single macro. Input parameter is set of stored search and replace operations and result is the text of macro.

[Feb 01, 2015] In "Tools/Page options/Code Formatting" dialog you can specify replacement of tabs with spaces and number of line breaks before and after major HTML tags.

Default are not optimal so you need to customize it to your liking. For example both opening and closing blockquote tag should IMHO be on a separate line.

[Jan 29, 2015] Removing space before closing tag and inserting it after (single quotes used to show were space in regex is)

 ' {</:w#>}' -> '\1 '

For example string

<b>word  </b> with space in a wrong place for closing tar

will be converted to

<b>word</b> with space in a wrong place for closing tar

[Jan 21, 2015] Ctrl-? toggles display of html tags on an off

Convenient for troubleshooting, especially when you have one tag missing and try to find where "mess" starts

Kind of code view without full details.

[Jan 20, 2015] Use paste special if you copy into your page a quote from sites with complex markup (most MSM sites belong to this category)

Copying HTML fragment from IE into Frontpage is a very dangerous operation, as Frontpage take too much from the original page and as a result often hangs. As there is no auto save mode you lose all your work if other pages were opened and you edited them. Sometimes several hours of your work are lost just because of one wrong paste operation.

So if you edits several open pages and want to past a fragment into one of them you better use Edit/Paste special option...

[Jan 20, 2015] When saving files in Frontpage installed on Windows 7 you can use "My Recent Document" (the top icon of the left pane of save dialog) to find quickly the relevant folder

This is a very important tip. This "My Recent Document" option actually can be viewed as "poor man favorites" substitute.

[Dec 12, 2014] Logitech G600 Gaming Mouse

It make sense to use Frontpage with this particular mouse. While it is commonly used for authocad and image editors nothing prevent s using it with editors such as Frontpage.

[Dec 12, 2014] You can switch from design to code view and back with one macro button. the macro should contain Ctrl-PgUP Ctrl-PgUP

This is possible because switch cycles and code view is two step from design exactly like design is two steps from codeview.

[Dec 08, 2014] Search for some string in a selected folder changes timestamp of the files in Frontpage.

[Dec 05, 2014] Open and save as dialogs can be expanded to contains more files then in default.

Actually size can easy be doubled that make them more convinient for both files and Recent Selections.

[Dec 04, 2014] You can drag and drop folders from folder list panel between two instances of Frontpage.

[Aug 16, 2014] Implementing favorites via My Recent documents in Windows 7

Frontpage does not have favorites folders concept. But it can be imitated for some folder that get into My Recent list. Which saves you a lot of clicking, especially if you use deeply nested folders on your website.

My Recent Documents in Windows 7 list not only files but folders too and is more convient and contain more entries then Frontpage File/Recent files list.

[Jul 19, 2014] If you have Folder List (left pane) opened, sometimes wrong click moved the current folder up the tree into the next folder, making it a subfolder of the next folder.

Frontpage corrects all links in the process. But if subtree is large moving back it to "proper" place does not always restore links. Some links became mangled. In this case it is better to restore subtree from the backup and then move manually only files recently changed. For your safely keep Folder list most time closed. It also occupy valuable real estate.

[Jul 11, 2014] You copy any file or directory in Filer list and paste it in your page.

In this case only link will be pasted. You can also drag a file or folder from Folder list to the page -- same effect.

[Jul 08, 2014] When you move Web page from one directory to another in Folder View (via cut and paste) and the new directory has a different level in websites tree (for example is a parent directory), FrontPage corrects all the internal references automatically.

[Jun 07, 2014] Compensating for the absence of AutoSave in Frontpage with programmable keyboard or AutoHotkey

The idea is to redefine quickly used shortcuts so that they save the page first.

Using G-510s Logitech keyboard or any other programmable keyboard you can define macros

[Jun 05, 2014] Putting macros on G-510s Logitech keyboard.

18 G-keys allow to put all major shortcuts that requires use of modified like Ctrl into single click macro keys.

M-keys can be used to switch to shortcut for specific submenu, for example M2 can be used for Ctrl-H submenu shortcuts and stored searches.

[Jun 04, 2014] Finding "disappeared" pages"

if you have a large Web site and put a new page that you just created somewhere (sometimes with Frontpage Folder list help ;-) and can't find it now, you can get Reports/New files and see where it is located.

[May 08, 2014] Copy and paste just formatting of the fragment or a word

[May 06, 2014] Paste special

Along with regular paste operation Frontpage has "Paste special" operation (Edit/Paste special) which can remove all style from the fragment.

For regular "paste operation" the possibility to remove all styles also exists in special menu box that appears after each paste operation. On clicking it displays two items:

They give the possibility iether to preserve or remove original styles.

BTW the tendency of Frontpage to copy stylesheets from the source on any paste operation from a WebPage in "Keep source formatting" mode is pretty annoying, but I do not know how to switch it off other then stop using regular paste mode.

[Apr 25, 2014] FrontPage maintains its own buffer of recent selections called Office clipboard (Edit/clipboard)

This Task bar feature has options (at the bottom). By default it appear it you press Ctrl-C twice. It also has icon on Taskbar.

FrontPage By default it contain you 24 last selections and it is very useful if you need to paste the text again and again.

[Apr 19, 2014] You can use Alt-F1 (hide/restore file tree panel) in the same way as you use Ctrl-O and Ctrl-F1 in OFMs such as FAR.

If allow wider screen to display your text and this improves you ability to see tags at the end of each line. This is especially important if you are editing imported text with a complex structure of existing tags (multiple div and span tags)

[Feb 19, 2014] Sometimes several string replacements can do the same trick as regular expressions

For example is you want to put a slash for local links (assuming that only type http:// of external links is present)

<a href="http -> <aaa href="http

<a href=" -> <a href="/

<a href="// -> a href="/

<aaa href="http -> <a href="http

[Feb 08, 2014 Copying files from folder list of one instance of Frontpage to another

If you open two instances of Frontpage (same site or two different sites) you can copy files from folder list of one to another. That's great for reorg of your web site.

[Feb 08, 2014] Search of string with leading blanks

Frontpage automatically deletes leading blanks if you select the search string in the text and press Ctrl-F. You need to reinsert them manually before search

The same is true for replace

Using FrontPage 2003 to Consolidate Images in a Common Folder

Microsoft Bob

I recently inherited a large website with thousands of images that were spread across dozens of folders throughout the website. Unfortunately, this website was created by several developers, so there were a large number of duplicate images scattered throughout the website.

It would have taken me several days to remove all of the duplicates and edit all of the HTML in the web pages, so this seemed like a task that was better suited for automation in FrontPage 2003.

The following VBA macro for FrontPage 2003 will locate every image in a website, and it will move all images to the website's root-level "images" folder if they are not already located in that folder:

[Jan 15, 2014] Any operation that is possible for a page is also possible for a group of selected pages or folders

[Jan 14, 2014] If you copy and paste the file in the folder, Frontpage create a file with the suffix copy(1). Useful for backups and for moving files around.

[Sep 30, 2013] On Windows 7 it is better to run Frontpage in Windows XP compatibility mode

Set Windows XP compatibility mode for Frontpage icon. It does not help to restore correct behavior of selection in folder list, but generally provides some minor improvement in behavior.

[Sep 30, 2013] FP Cleaner Utility

You need to schedule to run this utility once a month via Windows scheduler as this is a persistent problem.

A must from cleaning temporary Frontpage files after crash and periodically to prevent Frontpage "freezing" and you changes lost

[Jul 08, 2013] Report about recently modified files in left page of Frontpage Explorer can serve as substitute for book marks. You can open files from it.

[Jul 07, 2013] Sometimes Frontpage changes timestamp on all files without any reason. I wonder why and what are conditions

[Jul 06, 2013] To copy files from one folder to another you can use "Web site" tab of right pane and then open necessary folder and drag files to the right pane. Kind of Orthodox file manager functionality.

[Jul 05, 2013] Ctrl-K opens link dialog. You can add not only URL but title of the URL in it (at the top)

[Apr 29, 2013] Microsoft Expression Web now FREE WYSIWYG and Text Code

Expression Web went the way of FrontPage. Now it is abandonware: free WYSIWYG and Text Code Editor
Editors forum at WebmasterWorld

The proliferation of rich interactive web applications across the cloud and mobile devices continues to create new opportunities for creative design and development. As these technologies evolve, Microsoft is committed to providing best-in-class tools for building modern applications. In support of these industry trends Microsoft is consolidating our lead design and development offerings - Expression and Visual Studio - to offer all of our customers a unified solution that brings together the best of Web and modern development patterns.

[Apr 29, 2013] To display, edit, or set table properties, press SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+T.

[Apr 27, 2013] Ctrl-Q is able to add any tag (tt, em, pre, etc), tags with style or even several tags

By default this menu invokes with default option Wrap tag, which is probably the most useful option. But there are two other in the down menu:

See also Top tips for FrontPage - Frontpage - Office.com

To display the Quick Tag Editor in Code view, press CTRL+Q.

[Jan 07, 2013] To see end of paragraph mark, broken tags and comments in design view of FrontPage 2003

Show all (Ctrl-*) or click on the paragraph mark button in the standard toolbar

[Aug 24, 2012] If you have two versions of the same file under different names you can merge them the following way

[Aug 18, 2012] Global replacement for the whole site is a nice tool and works both in source and in source code, but for a large site the operation should be split by dozens of, say, level two directories.

Attempt to change the whole site fails for large sites.

[Aug 18, 2012] You can mark multiple files in file panel by clicking at the first and last file in Windows 7.

Looks like this operation changed from Windows XP where you can press control and mark as many files as necessary.

[Aug 09, 2012] Deleting attribute in table such as height often is possible via genetic [All tags] attribute deletion in search replace

[Aug 08, 2012] Finding matching tag is possible in code view with left click

[Nov 16, 2011] Page options has setting for tag auto completion.

In many cases this is unnecessary and could be unchecked.

[Apr 05, 2010] Collapsible lists

This is implemented via JavaScript. Use at your own risk.

A collapsible list lets you hide sublists under a so-called parent item so that the sublists
display only when the parent is clicked.

To create a collapsible list:

[Apr 05, 2010] Changing nesting in multilevel lists

Within an existing list, select the item(s) you want to move to a sublevel.

[Apr 05, 2010] Some rarely used Code view shortcuts

[May 16, 2007] Change Other Formatting to Make Code Readable

This is from Stanek book

Besides the font type, size, and color, and word wrap, the other attributes you may want to change in order to make your code more readable are spaces and line breaks. The Code Formatting tab of the Page Options dialog box contains such controls:

One of the most powerful controls on the Code Formatting tab enables you to base the formatting of all the code that FrontPage presents by basing it on the formatting of the current page. Once you have adjusted the code so that it looks the way you want it to, click the Base On Current page button to make the same settings apply to current pages as well. Such consistency enables you to instruct your co-workers to look for the same elements-"look for the green comments within the HTML code," for instance.

[May 16, 2007] Make HTML Code Wrap

By default HTML code in code view is not wrapped: it extends off the screen to the right. You have to scroll to view it. You can change this by activating word wrap: choose Tools, Page Options, and then click the General tab. Check the box next to Word Wrap, then click OK. The General tab also lets you de-activate line numbers, the selection margin to the immediate left of the lines of code, and automatic indenting of scripts or HTML, so that new lines in the Code pane are aligned with the line above.

[Feb 12, 2006] Convert a table from absolute to relative (percentage-based) cell sizes:

The problem can be solved using search and replace with regular expressions for this purpose.

Regular expressions like:

width\=\"\[0-9]+\"

do the trick of removing (replacement should be empty).

[Feb 9, 2006] Useful Shortcut Keys in FrontPage 2000

CONTROL WEB PAGE DEFAULT SETTINGS
As users of Microsoft Word are probably aware, every time you create a new document, Word bases that document on a template called Normal.dot. This template includes such information as the default font Word uses and the standard margins for pages. What you may not be aware of, however, is that Microsoft FrontPage uses a similar template whenever you create a new HTML document. By modifying this template, you can control many of the default settings on your HTML pages. In this article, you can see where FrontPage stores its template and how you can edit it:

Activity Shortcut Keys

Create a hyperlink

CTRL+K

Display HTML tags

CTRL+/

Create an AutoThumbnail of the selected picture

CTRL+T

[Jan 28, 2006] Link External Style Sheets

To link an external style sheet to a page, select the Format/Style Sheet Links menu. The Link Style Sheet dialog box will list your currently available style sheets. If there aren't any style sheets in the list, you can click the Add button to reference a file from anywhere in your current site, your hard drive, or the Internet. After you've added one or more sheets to the list, select the ones you would like to link and click OK.

You can also choose to link your style sheets to a few pages or all the pages in your site.

Change the Title of a Page

You can change the title of the page in the folder view. In the Folders view, click on a page or file to select it, then click its title. An edit box will appear that allows you to type in a new title for the page. This same procedure also lets you alter the file's name and comments. In addition, while the edit box is still activated, you can use the Ctrl-arrow keys to move the box around to edit another file's attributes.

Make a Macro Button

One of the best new features of FrontPage 2000 is the Visual Basic for Applications Macro Editor. Macros can be a great help in applying a number of repetitive tasks. The only problem is that after you create a macro you have to go through a series of menus just to access it, which defeats the purpose of the shortcut. Expanding a bit on the previous tip, FrontPage will let you create your own custom macro button.

Select Tools/Customize and click the Commands tab. Click the Macros category and then drag and drop either the Custom Menu Item command to a menu or the Custom Button command to a toolbar. Right-click the command. On the pop-up menu type in a new name for the command, then select Assign Macro. Choose a macro from the Macro dialog box, and you've got your new macro button. You also can change the icon for the button by right-clicking it and selecting either Change Button Image or Edit Button Image. Change Button Image displays a selection of 48 pre-made icons from which you can choose. If you don't like any of those, the Edit Button Image function will let you actually create one of your own.

Create Your Own Commands

FrontPage 2000 now includes support for the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language, which has become so popular because of its widespread use in Microsoft Office. With VBA, you can automate tasks, manipulate different aspects of your Web project within the VBA programming environment, and create your own commands. As an example, here's how to add a Save All command to FrontPage that will allow you to save every open page in a project with just one click.

First, start the Visual Basic Editor (VBE) by selecting the Tools/Macro/Visual Basic Editor menu. Insert a new module by selecting the Insert/Module menu. In the Properties window (located on the left side of the VBE window), change the name of the module to SaveAll. Now, in the module code window that opened up when you inserted a new module.

To add the new command to the File menu in FrontPage, choose Tools/Customize to open the Customize dialog box. Under the Command tab, select Macros from the Categories list. Drag the Custom Menu Item item from the Commands list onto the FrontPage File menu and drop it beneath the Save command. Next, click the Modify Selection button in the Customize dialog box, and a context menu will appear. Type Save All in the Name field and then select Assign Macro. In the Macro dialog box, select the Save_All macro and click OK. Close the Customize dialog box, and your new Save All command appears in the FrontPage File menu.

Inserting bookmarks from the other page

When creating a hyperlink, FrontPage shows you a list of all the folders and pages in the current site. You can bet to specific bookmark by highlighting the page you want to link and clicking on bookmarks option in the menu.

Download details Office 2000 HTML Filter 2.0

The Office HTML Filter is a tool you can use to remove Office-specific markup tags embedded in Office 2000 documents saved as HTML.

Verify and Repair Broken Hyperlinks FrontPage includes a tool that allows you to verify the hyperlinks used in a web. These hyperlinks include links to other pages in the current web and pages in other webs, as well as links to the components of a Web page, such as graphic and sound files.

You verify hyperlinks in Reports view. When you select the Verify Hyperlinks button on the Reports toolbar, the view changes to display external hyperlinks as well as internal, broken hyperlinks. Broken, internal hyperlinks appear with a broken chain link and the text Broken in the Status column.

You can repair the hyperlink itself in the Edit Hyperlink dialog box. In this dialog box, you can choose to change the link in all Web pages or only selected ones. You can also repair a hyperlink by opening the page containing the broken link in Page view. After the link has been fixed, it is removed from Reports view or a green check mark and the text OK appear in the Status column.

Optimize HTML option works not only in code view but also from Tools/Optimize HTML. You can also to grag it to it to a toolbar.

Folder List accepts multiple selection: You can select multiple files in the filer list by pressing Ctrl while clicking on each of them. After that certain operating can be performed on a group (opening, search, cut&paste, deletion, etc).

Blocking short menu: Initially, FrontPage's short menus only display the standard commands, and, as you work, the program automatically adds the commands you use most often. If you don't like this automatic customization, you can turn it off by selecting Tools/Customize, clicking the Options tab, and deselecting Menus Show Recently Used Commands First.

Navigation Tip. After invoking of bookmarks screen (Ctrl-G) you can click on any bookmark: that's equivalent to using goto operation.

Single space line - Press the Shift+Enter keys simultaneously at the end of your text for a single spaced line break.

Make a Hyperlink Open in a New Window - In hyperlink properties, click on the little pencil (target frame) and choose 'new window' from the common targets which will insert the '_blank' target setting in your page.

Find and Replace has been enhanced in Microsoft FrontPage 2003, and now includes regular expressions.

You can search one document or a group of documents or all the files in your web without opening each individual page to quickly find and replace content or even HTML.

To search multiple files you need to select only those that you want to analyse. You can also tab between Find and Replace.

To use the enhanced Find and Replace in a page or across your entire Web site, open a new or existing page or Web site in FrontPage 2003 and do the following:

  1. On the Edit menu, select Find or Replace.
  2. In Find where:, select where to search by clicking Current page, Selected page(s) or All Pages.
  3. To find and replace content, click the Replace tab, enter your text in Find what:, and Replace with: and click Replace All or Replace.

Tip To search Selected page(s) multiple select more than one Web page or file to search. In Folder List view, press the control key and left-click (CTRL+Left-click) on each file to select it. Then open the Find or Replace dialog to search only on the selected files. Make sure you select Selected page(s) under Find where: before doing a replace.

For more information about the Find and Replace, see Microsoft FrontPage 2002 Help.

Frontpage 2000x2-title Find and Replace HTML

FrontPage provides a nice way to find and replace text within all the pages in a Web site. This is a great feature for changing the name of a product or some other text that might be found on many pages in a site, but what about the underlying source code?

You can find and replace HTML in all the pages in a site or in a selected group of pages. To limit your global changes to a group of pages, first go to the Folders view and select the pages you want. After that, the procedure is the same for processing all the pages in a site. Select the Edit/Replace menu to bring up the Replace dialog box. Type the code you want to find and then the replacement code. Under Search Options, choose either All Pages or Selected Pages. Be sure to also select the Find In HTML option. Click the Find In Web button to find every occurrence of the code you're looking for. Then click the Replace All button, and every instance of your code will be replaced.

You can use this technique to change anything in the underlying source code of a page, including tags, attributes, values, comments, and scripts. It's also very helpful for changing email addresses or any other hyperlinks.

MS FrontPage Software Tips

TIP #7: CORRECTING LINKS OF AN IMPORTED WEB TO REFER TO THE URL RATHER THAN A NETWORK DRIVE

After you Import a web, edit your pages, and republish the web to the Web Server mapped as a network drive, you may find that your hyperlinks point to the network drive as opposed to the appropriate URL.

For example, you may find that your links look similar to Y://folder_name rather than to a URL such as http://www.ee.psu.edu/acadaff/ (for Electrical Engineering's academic web pages) or http://www.ie.psu.edu/courses (for Industrial Engineering's course web pages) or http://www.engr.psu.edu/www/trg (for our training pages).

This is a problem since visito rs who aren't mapped to the network drive will get a "Page not found" notice when they follow your links.

To correct this, select the 'Edit' menu and then choose 'Replace'. In the Find text box, enter 'file:///Y://trg/' (substituting Y: for the letter of the network drive and the appropriate directory). Using the Electrical Engineering example above, you would enter 'file:///Y://acadaff/'. For the Industrial Engineering example, you would enter 'file:///Y://courses/'.

In the Replace text box, enter 'http://www.engr.psu.edu/www/trg/ (substituting the URL to your web space given to you by your web master). In the Electrical Engineering example, you would enter http://www.ee.psu.edu/acadaff/ . For the Industrial Engineering example, you would enter 'http://www.ie.psu.edu/courses/'.

This action will replace all links pointing to the network drive to URLs and therefore, allow your links to be followed by all visitors, regardless if they are mapped to the network drive or not.

TIP #8: EDITING HYPERLINKS WHEN SPELL CHECKER HAS IDENTIFIED TEXT AS MISSPELLED (All Versions)

If your hyperlink text triggers the spell-checker the text will get a red squiggly line under it and when you right mouse click on the link, you'll see spell checking options but not the hyperlink options.

To edit the hyperlink, highlight the hyperlink text and press Ctrl + K. This will open the Insert Hyperlink dialog box and you can edit your hyperlink.

TIP #10: REDUCING THE SIZE OF GRAPHICS IN YOUR WEB (All Versions)

Here are four ways you can reduce the size of graphics in your web and consequently, decrease the download time of your web pages:

1. Cropping the Graphic

2. Resize the Graphic Proportionally

3. Create a Thumbnail for your Graphic - A thumbnail is a smaller version of the graphic that a user can click on to see a full sized version of the graphic.

4. For GIF Images, you can use a graphics editing program to reduce the number of colors in the graphic. If you reduce the number of colors from 256 to 32 (or even 16), often the reduction in the number of colors is unnoticeable but the size of the file is greatly reduced. Also, you can set your graphics program to store GIF graphics in an interlaced format and this allows visitors to see a blurry version of the image while it is still downloading.

Tip #13 - Adding Keywords to Your FrontPage Web Pages (All Versions)

To make your web pages more accessible to search engines, you can add Keywords to your pages.

Here's how:

1. From the File menu, select Properties and then click on the Custom tab.

2. Under the User Variables section (second half), click the Add button.

3. In the Name box, type "keywords".

4. In the Value box, type the index keywords for your web pages separating each keyword with a comma.

5. Click Ok and Save your page.

Tip #16 - Inserting an Existing Web Site into FrontPage You can import an existing web site into FrontPage, make edits and then republish the web site to your web server. To import an existing web site, follow these steps:
  1. From the File menu, select Import.
  2. Choose Import Web Site Wizard.
  3. You can specify a location for the imported web site under the "Specify the location of the new web:" text box or you can click Browse and browse to the location for the imported web site.
  4. Click the Open button.
  5. Click Ok.
  6. The Import Web Wizard asks you to specify the current location of the web site you wish to import. You can enter the URL of the web site and then click Next.
  7. If you want to limit the imported web site, you can by specifying to limit it by pages, disk space or limit it to text and image files. If you do not wish to limit the imported web site, make sure all these check boxes are cleared and then click Next.
  8. At the final screen of the Import Web Site wizard, click the Finish button.

Tip #17 - Using the Find and Replace Feature to Search and Replace HTML Code in Web Pages

When you work with web pages in HTML view, you are only working with a representation of the actual HTML code for the page (not the actual HTML code as it appears when the page is saved to the file system). For this reason, it is not recommended that you use the Find and Replace to perform bulk, HTML code editing because you may not find all the web pages that contain the code/tag for which you are searching. To work around this, search for a tag without the closing tag indicator, such as <body rather than <body>.

Tip #20 - Using Page Templates and Web Site Wizards (Versions 2002 and above)

Page Templates

You can use Page Templates to quickly and easily create web pages. You can make changes to your created pages based on page templates to suit your purposes. Here's how to create a page based on a page template:

  1. From the File menu, select New
  2. In the Task Pane, choose 'More Page Templates'.
  3. From the Page Templates dialog box that appears, select a page template depending on the type of page you wish to create. Your choices include Normal page, Bibliography, Photo Gallery, Search page, Guest Book, etc.

Note: For additional templates (including those for other MS Office programs), please visit: http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/templates/default.aspx.

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