MS FrontPage

Adding Content to Your Web Site

Whatever your site is about, one thing is always true: to get your message out there, you've got to get it onto your Web pages. Fortunately, FrontPage's features for adding text, pictures, and other elements are plentiful and easy to work with.

Adding Text

Even Web pages that consist mostly of pictures include a few words. For all the ins and outs of working with text in FrontPage, check out the next tutorial. Meanwhile, the following steps give you a rudimentary start.

  1. Click to place your cursor within the table cell on the top right of your new page and type a few words that will serve as the heading for your page.

  2. Leaving your cursor on the line you just typed, click the Style drop-down menu on the formatting toolbar (where the current choice is Normal) and select Heading 1 from the list.

  3. On the formatting toolbar, click the Center button.

    The text is now centered within that cell. If you weren't using a layout table, your text would be centered on the page.

  4. Highlight all the text you just typed.

    To do this, drag your cursor across the entire line (just as though you were selecting text in Microsoft Word). Don't leave out any letters. The additional formatting you're going to apply is character-based, meaning it applies only to the characters you select.

  5. On the formatting toolbar, click the drop-down arrow to the right of the Font Color button and select red.

  6. Click to place your cursor in the cell on the lower right (just below the cell your heading's in).

    Your cursor should still be in the right side of the layout table. Perhaps you've seen Web pages that look similar to the format you're using? In the upper-left corner there's room for a logo. Below that on the left, a long narrow cell is a nice place to put a vertical menu bar with links to other parts of the site. On the right, you can enter general page content, as you're about to do.

  7. Type a line of text and press Enter.

  8. Type another line and press Enter.

You've now got yourself a simple Web page with some text on it. It's not going to win any awards, but it's a start.

Adding Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are like glue. They bind the pages of your site to each other and also to the rest of the Web. If you forget to link to one of your site's pages, it could languish in oblivion, unread for ages. Actually, FrontPage can help you find these unlinked pages, but the point is that pages need hyperlinks if you want people to get to them.

You can add hyperlinks that open other pages or even initiate emails. Right now, you'll create another Web page in your site and link to itall in one step.

  1. Highlight a word or line of text on your page.

  2. Right-click and select Hyperlink.

    The Insert Hyperlink dialog box opens (see Figure 1-5).

    Figure 1-5. Use the Insert Hyperlink dialog box to set the destination of a link. Hyperlinks can lead to other pages within your site or to pages out on the Web. You can even use this dialog box to create new pages. The text you highlighted on the page appears in the "Text to display" box at the top. This text will serve as the hyperlink on your Web page.

  3. Click once on the Create New Document link option on the left.

    The dialog box presents some new options based on your selection. The "Text to display" box shows you the text on the page that will become your hyperlink. You can edit this text here or on the page itself.

  4. Within the Name field, type a name for your new page (again, don't include spaces, capital letters, or special characters) and click OK.

    You've just created a new page within your Web site and linked to it at the same time. Your new page appears in the document window.

  5. At the top of your new page, type a heading, format it as Heading 1, center the text, and press Enter.

    Did you forget how to do that already? Check out steps 2 through 5 in the previous section.

  6. Select Insert » Horizontal Line and press Enter again.

    Once you're a FrontPage whiz, you'll probably use tables to lay out your pages (as you did in the previous section). But FrontPage gives you other elements you can use to organize a page, too. The horizontal line is an easy (if unrefined) way to break text into sections.

  7. If your cursor isn't centered on the page, click the Center button on the formatting toolbar.

    Since you didn't lay this page out with a table, centering elements like headings and images is a quick way to make the page look better. (However, when it comes to longer paragraphs, left align looks more professional and is easier to read than centered text.)

Adding Images

Graphics can really spice up your page and help dazzle your visitors. Use images to share information (to show what your products look like) or provide guidance for what you want visitors to do (a picture of a house might be a link to your home page). Or they might just fulfill your decorative urges.

Whatever the reason, follow the steps below to add an image to your page. Later, when you create your own real site, you'll probably have your own original graphics. For now, just borrow from Microsoft's clip art collection.

  1. Select, Insert » Picture » Clip Art.

    The Clip Art task pane displays on the right with a search box (see Figure 1-6). You don't need to search extensively. Don't even bother to type anything. Just click Go, and some pictures should display on the lower-right side of the task pane.

  2. Click any picture to select it.

    The picture displays on your page.

    Figure 1-6. Now that you have a couple of pages, the editing window includes more options. At the top of the document window, click the tabs to switch between open pages. An asterisk next to a page name indicates that the page contains unsaved material. (You'll learn how to save in a moment.) At left, within the folder list, your new page (Managua.htm, in this example) appears.

  3. Close the task pane by clicking the x on the upper-right corner or selecting View » Task pane to turn it off.