Microsoft word as an editor

Using word to edit web pages

[mysticalapollo]

I am new to the web development game, though a very fast learner. I have already picked up so much information after perusing this site a bit. My question is this and I am surprised with all the newvie questions that it has not come up. I have used adobe go live in the past, but I noticed that microsoft word is so convenient in that you do not have to know code and you can essentially cut and paste as you would be doing desktop publishing. So why would word not be a good tool to use? What are the drawbacks, I do know that in some instances that graphics are more difficult to manipulate as the source code is not included and gets lost each time the image is clicked whereas GoLive you can just type in the source and it will stick. I knwo that there are advanced features that other programs offer, but the website I am working on is basicj information only not much in the way of interaction. I do plan on developing my skills starting here, but again I have not really seen any posts in the way of usgin MS Word for editing. Any input is greatly appreciated

[martinibuster]

The code is a nightmare of bloat and proprietary tags. It's the worst thing to feed to a search engine.

I can see where you're coming from, but I recommend taking a course on HTML and familiarizing yourself with it. It's an easy language to learn and once you've learned it you will have gained a potent skill.

Welcome to webmasterworld! Don't be afraid to ask questions. Hope to see more of you. ;)

[Sinner_G]

Just open your page made in word in any non-IE browser (Opera, Mozilla, Netscape,...) and you will see why it is not a good tool.

[mysticalapollo]

Thanks for the prompt responses. I had made some updates to the company website. So I went and downloaded Opera just now to look at it, and the updates I made took and the site looks fine, although I hadn't really made major changes, just some background color and text, but they looked fine as it would in IE. Thanks for the welcome to, and I do plan on being here awhile. Thanks again.

[Sinner_G]

Should have thought about that. The default for Opera is to identify as IE (meaning it tells the server it is an IE browser), so the difference isn't so big.

Try just changing that preference to identify as Opera (click F12 in Opera, on the opening popup change preference, reload page).

[Marketing Guy]

The next step would be to move on to Frontpage - another MS product, but specifically for creating websites.

It requires your web server to have Frontpage Server Extensions installed though.

It shares a common interface with MS products, so if you are familiar with the advanced features in Word you shouldnt have any problems. It also shares the same code issues tho! ;)

As Martinibuster said, learn HTML. Using a HTML editor such as Frontpage will help you learn HTML, as you can switch from "design" view to "HTML" view to see what everything does.

It's also much more functional than using Word and will allow you to have more control over what you do with your pages.

Scott

[ShawnR]

I agree with Sinner_G's first post, not his second ;)

The code produced by MS Word is terrible, but the latest versions of some browsers such as Opera can make sense of it. Look at it with anything other than the latest versions will illustrate the point. Of course, if you had a decent site, and just used MS to make a few small changes, then maybe the problems won't be that noticable.

It is true that Opera identifies itself as different browsers, depending on how you configure it, but that does not affect how it displays the site, nor does it affect what the server serves if the server is serving a static site.

There are other problems with using Word for web editing, such as maintenance of links, etc. I like Word, but for what it is meant to do. Did you know you can get it total figures in a column of a table? But you wouldn't do it, you'd use a spreadsheet. Using the right tools for the job makes things so much easier.

[Sinner_G]

It is true that Opera identifies itself as different browsers, depending on how you configure it, but that does not affect how it displays the site

Shawn, go to Zeal for example with Opera ID'ed as Opera and then as IE, there is quite a difference.

[ShawnR]

"...Shawn, go to Zeal for example with Opera ID'ed as Opera and then as IE..."

Yes, my point exactly. Zeal serves one version of the site for IE browsers and another version for Opera browsers. The difference you see is not because of Opera interpreting it one way or another depending on the mode it is set to. The difference is because the website is serving Opera a different version of the html depending on what it is set to. Given a particular version (i.e. a static site), opera will display it the same, irrespective of the reporting mode it is set to.

I phrased that a bit convoluted, so I hope you understand what I am getting at. Makes sense?

[tedster]

I recently was hired to re-do a site of about 100 pages that had been built and maintained in MS Word - over about 4 years. This was an amazing example of how bad it can get.

Several of the pages took over a minute to load -- LOCALLY! Served on a broadband connection it was more like 2-3 minutes, and I can only imagine what a dial-up visitor would have to cope with. I never had the heart to check.

These were not graphic heavy pages -- 25kb of image weight was about the max on any page. What happened apparently was an ongoing pile-up of XML, because the owner of the site asked his secretary to make tweaks almost daily.

I wouldn't have thought that this was possible - an 800 word page with two images that takes over a minute to load locally. But with the creative use of MS Word over time, you can apparently work miracles.

[Sinner_G]

@ShawnR: If I get you right, the server gives me another version of the page based on the user agent?

Then what sense does it make to serve Opera a version it can display correctly only when it ID'es as IE?

[shasan]

A couple of years ago, I was helping some first year (freshman to the americans) students with their "make a website" assignment. They were told to use MS-Word to do so.

This one guy just had one page with one picture and one paragraph of intro text, built in MS-Word. Now people, this should be about 5 or 6 lines of HTML agreed? I viewed the source on it and no-word-of-a-lie, it stretched for about 4 pages. OMG.

Stay away from MS-Word for web editing. MS-Frontpage, as some people have indicated, is good. Dreamweaver rocks the house yo. ;)

MarketingGuy, I don't think you NEED Frontpage extensions installed on your server unless you're going to use the Frontpage automatic publishing doo-hicky and other assorted FP whiz-bangs.

I believe you can edit pages and then just save them and FTP them up without using Frontpage extensions. I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure this is true.

either way, drop MS-Word for the web editing. Fight the temptation! :)

[richlowe]

It requires your web server to have Frontpage Server Extensions installed though.

I have used frontpage for years without the silly, insecure extensions. Works fine, you just have to use other means to do their fancy stuff.

[ShawnR]

"...what sense does it make to serve Opera a version it can display correctly only when it ID'es as IE?..."

I've started another discussion thread to continue the discussion re how Opera reports, as I don't want to veer this one off topic. See [webmasterworld.com...]

[pleeker]

Not only is Word a bad choice for doing HTML because of the code bloat, but it also now does a poor job when you use "save as HTML". I've stopped using that altogether. Save as text instead, then look at the client's original Word document to see where bold, italics, are to be placed.

[mysticalapollo]

My goodness! I must say that all of these responses were not expected, especially so soon. I just got back and checked the site and WOW you all have given great insight. Thank you very much. The issues you all have portrayed were something I was pretty sure of however I wasn't certain. Of course it did start to get a bit off topic :) but it has all ben great nonetheless. Thanks for clarifying. I guess I will continue and work with adobe golive which for the little I used it for was very nice. I will also look at frontpage and dreamweaver and play around with them. Like I said, I am new, but I do pick up these things very quickly, which I think is probably the case for the majority of you here, especially those who were self-taught.

I hope I may be able to contribute some good things in return. In fact I did post another in the freelance area if you would like to take at some suggestions I have for getting more work. I think what I said can apply to all of those wishing to get some extra or extensive work, very great resource of potential clients in the field I wrote about.

At any rate, thanks again, I was just so surprised that even in the new to web forums and elsewhere that there wasnt any discussion related to MS Word for editing. I guess it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO poor that even for the newest of news to web development it was a topic not worth mentioning. I should have known, but then again it never hurts to ask. Thanks again for clarifying what I had suspected, As, even when I was doing the little bit that I had done to the site, the files and links were just getting out of hand.

[mysticalapollo]

Also Shawn and Sinner... Its funny how of all three as well as the many other browsers out there, that I go and select the one that can read my site well.....Just a funny side thought...then this topic suddenly escalates into that browser as a topic....funny.

[tbear]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld mysticalapollo........
Might be worth your while trying to learn some HTML. It really is easy to begin with and a little helps a lot.

[robert adams]

golive can make code almost as bad as word sometimes. just use an html editor like 1st page or even notepad.

robert

[Marketing Guy]

Aye as said, FP server extensions are only need if you are doing fancy stuff - eg, using FP include pages or the form creation tool.

If your web host doesnt have FP server extensions installed, you can just do this stuff by hand and FTP your files to the server.

Scott :)

[bill]

FP Server Extensions are no longer used as of FP 2003...they use FTP for file transfer and rely on some Windows 2003 Server elements for a lot of the extra components.