pageoneresults - 5:05 pm on Jan 18, 2006 (gmt 0)

Broken Tags - Soft Returns <br> - Hard Returns </p> (or other ending block level elements)

Use the Reveal Tags option (Ctrl + /) while designing in normal view and you'll be able to eliminate a lot of your broken tags, improperly nested tags, wrapped tags, ending tags that are missing, etc.

You should also work with your Show All ¶ selected (Ctrl + Shift + *) as this works in conjunction with the Reveal Tags option (Ctrl + /) and will show you where your Soft Returns <br> and Hard Returns </block> are located.

You'll want to make sure that all ending tags are properly positioned, especially those </td> and </p> tags. If those two tags are hanging by themselves (see another topic on setting up FrontPage Page Options [webmasterworld.com] to prevent tags from wrapping), you will see unusual spacing issues between cells <td> and paragraph <p> text.

<td>Incorrect Example
<td>Content here...
</td>

<td>Correct Example
<td>Content here...</td>

<p>Incorrect Example
<p>Content here...
</p>

<p>Correct Example
<p>Content here...</p>

There is an art and science to using FrontPage correctly and these are just some of the tips I've learned since I first started using the program back in 1996! Here's another one you'll catch when revealing tags...

Properly nested <font> Tags (see note below)

Anytime you specify a color for a font you need the <font color="#******"> tag (unless you are using CSS and the FrontPage Style Menu as opposed to the Formatting Menu). When using colors for headline text we tend to <b> that copy.

There is a specific sequence in FrontPage to properly nest the font tags. You can see the differences by revealing html tags Ctrl + /.

Here is the correct way...

First select your copy to be bolded. Then you can either use the bold command from your toolbar or Ctrl + B. Select your font color and that's it. Notice how your tag looks like this...

<font><b>Content here.</b></font>

Here is the incorrect way...

First select your font color. Then bold your copy and that's it. Wrong! You end up with a tag that now looks like this...

<b><font>Content here.</font></b>

The above tag is not nested correctly. The <b> needs to be after the <font> and the </b> needs to be before the </font>.

lol! I'm sure those of you who read those last few lines are thinking, "<font> tags, what is he talking about? Those were deprecated back in the 90s."

Yes they were. This is one thing about FrontPage that I've not been able to figure out yet, how to get the default Font Color menu to work with CSS. If a user selects a line of copy to be colorized, and then uses the Font Color from the Formatting Toolbar, that line gets wrapped in a <font color="******"></font> tag, yuck! If I were shipping that program today, those menu choices would no longer be available. Anything that produces a <font> tag should be turned off by default. Many users cannot distinguish the difference between the Formatting Toolbar and the Style Menu. So, they tend to use the one with the least resistance which in this case is the Formatting Toolbar which does produce <font>!

But, we can't forget here, this is the nature of WYSIWYG. It is not designed by default to work with CSS. It is designed by default to work with legacy tagging methods. If there is one thing I don't like, it is anything that produces that darn <font> tag! ;)

Hey, anyone else out there getting anything out of this? :)