Office FrontPage 2003

FrontPage 2003 is a substantial improvement on earlier versions. The editor is well behaved, preserving hand-coded script or HTML code and a new split-view makes it easy to work with both the visual design and the underlying text. Strong new features include table-based layout tools, the ability to create a page design by tracing an image, nested or overlapping layers, better use of Cascading Stylesheets and templates that let you lock some content while making other parts of the page editable by other team members. Coding is enhanced by a quick tag editor and Intellisense statement completion. Flash movies are fully supported and there are tools for the easy display of XML data. There is also special integration with SharePoint services running on Windows 2003 Server, making FrontPage 2003 the natural choice for creating SharePoint intranets. FrontPage 2003 is a feature-rich product which enables good results without requiring knowledge of HTML, while also providing strong support for those who prefer to work with the underlying code. --Tim Anderson

It is 2.00 am and my shared borders, which were working yesterday, have disappeared, I have been through the help pages for 4 hours and now they have appeared in triplicate. I have spent hours at the on line training sessions and still I can't get graphics to stay where they are put.


Idiot's Guide to Web Design   July 6, 2005
 75 out of 77 found this review helpful

After inheriting the maintenance of an non-profit organisation's web site and having never designed/altered or otherwise a web site/page, I decided to buy FrontPage 2003 and a good guide. Absolutely the best move I made. It didn't take long to get to grips with FP, whether you're used to Microsoft products or not. It's a simple package to use with great Wizards for the novice and an extensive help section for both the novice and the more adventurous. It produces professionally designed sites and, as with most MS products, allows you to incorporate your own designs and advanced features. I'm looking forward to learning more and adding some advanced 'active' features to our new (and now much commented upon) web site. Highly recommended for beginners and the more advanced user.


Very good for the money   June 3, 2005
 52 out of 83 found this review helpful

I am a software engineer with over 20 years experience and I taught myself HTML from the ground up with NO tools at all, just using Notepad as the editor. That was OK, I know HTML backwards, but it wasn't very efficient. Frontpage removes that onerous task for the average user wanting to be creative and allows WYSIWG production of web pages. However, it won't write the back end code, which the average user couldn't care less about anyway. I rather suspect that more deprecating comments from Amazon reviewers come from those lazy little oiks who want the software to write all the code so they can charge clients large sums of money for doing zilch. The sort of so-called programmers with degrees from former-polytechnics-but-now-called-universities. Real people should ignore them and buy it.


Good but lacks features   February 9, 2005
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

I had expected too much, I thought the upgrade would bring me a whole lot more resources that I can use on web pages. In reality, compared to FrontPage 4, there are a few more interactive buttons, some forms, a photo gallery and a bunch of other uninteresting stuff. It doesn't even have drop down menus you can insert in your web page. It still doesn't handle tables very well, particularly Row Height.

Having said that, it is pretty good at managing a web site and keeping to a consistent navigation structure. If Microsoft could make new components available on the web, this could be a much better product.