Turning Front Page into real Web Pages

[tedster]

I have a new client who has lots of content developers creating pages with Front Page -- and these are relatively novice users.

The code I get is hideous and I need to optimize these pages and generally get them into shape. I barely know where to begin, since cleaning up all the Front Page-isms by hand can take a long time. In the documents I get sent, the copy is not even in sequence but in various absolutely positioned DIVs which seem to be in any old order in the HTML.

Has anyone ever faced this situation? Are there any short cuts I can use to eliminate the bulk of the garbage? Even if I need to [shudder] install and work in Front Page to do the clean up, I will, because this situation is not going to work out long term.

[DaveAtIFG]

Tedster - Dreamweaver! It has functions to "Clean Up HTML", "Clean Up Word HTML", "format Source Code", and more. I recently did some work on a FP generated site and they're completely compatible. Pay attention to DW Preferences before using these tools or some things may be rewritten in unexpected ways.

[rcjordan]

tedster, I waded into FP-generated stuff once about a month ago (for a friend). I expect it will be the last time. Code bloat was the biggest problem; deeply nested tables for no discernable reason, divs, you-name-it. I lightened the K/page by a large percentage and yet made no negative effect on the visual appeal. No shortcuts for you, I'm afraid, budget an hour per page for scalpel time.

added:
Dave, I should have sent my friend to you. Dreamweaver, eh?

[stcrim]

tedster,

I use FP2000 DW and notepad. FP2000 with extentions is just regular code - FP98 dinks with code and is a mess on all levels. The code that works with extentions on both 98 and 2000 is a mess.

Can you post or Stickymail me an example of the problem code.

Steve

[tedster]

Well, right now I feel foolish. The pages I've been wrestling with come from Microsoft Publisher. I'm ABOUT to get 100 pages done in Front Page by a first time user.

I appreciate the suggestion of Dreamweaver. I had version 3.0, but I uninstalled it since I just stopped using it. I write all my code in HomeSite. Does anyone know if version 3.0 of Dreamweaver does code cleanup? That might make it worth a re-install.

The biggest problem I face is all the absolute positioning in these files, and the multitude of style declarations that have odd and unintuitive effects. If I just strip the HTML, I'm left with copy that's all out of sequence. Cleaning up by hand means deleting all kinds of spans and divs and spurious <p> and <br> marks.

Steve, thanks for your offer to look at some code. If the Front Page stuff that's coming is as bad as I'm afraid it might be, I'll take you up on the offer.

[DaveAtIFG]

Every version I've used does it, currently using 3.1, 3.0 does it as did V2. It won't clean out nested tables and div tags automatically, but it makes what you have readable and easier to do a final polish on.

[stcrim]

HotMetal also has HTML cleaning. Haven't used it in a long time, but was very helpful. It takes you line by line (and numbers them) through problem code)

Steve

[bill]

This may not do all the cleaning you want, but there is a FrontPage add-on called [url=kissfp.com]KISSfp[/url] that strips a lot of the FP generated code from your HTML.

[tedster]

Thanks, Bill. That's really worth a close look.