BuildWebInstSyllabus

Creating Templates for Your Site Using WYSIWYG Editors

Creating templates in either Netscape Composer(version 4.03 +) or Microsoft Word (version 8.0+) is easy if you follow the Wizard's...........

Choose File/ New/ Blank page (in Word choose "File/New/Web Page/ Web Page Wizard)
Follow the directions on the screen to create your new web page

If you don't have the versions above then you can create a webpage from scratch.The easiest way to create a template from scratch is to start with a table. Usually a table with two columns and 2 rows is a good start. You can create them in both Microsoft Word and Netscape Composer. Here are some basic directions.

How do I Create a Table?

Click where you want your table to be.... Then:
Click on Table/ Insert Table- Choose how many cells wide and long you need your table so as to display your information.
You can start adding any data in each cell.
To Add or Delete Cells, rows or columns, click on the table then see Table Menu above.
To move across cells, click on tab - or click on the cell where you want to put information, and start typing.
Hint - if you have empty cells in the table click in them and then type "shift-Enter" to give it a filled out look in a browser.
Hint# 2 --Make the table "....%" of the screen rather than a certain number of pixels. This makes it adjust to the monitor size of the viewer. That choice is one of your decisions in Composer under "Table/Properties" (click on the table button when first creating the table)
To make a sidebar with links, put the links in the left column.
- In Microsoft Word (version 8.0+)you can drag your mouse over the separting line and move it to the left side to make a skinnier column on that side.
- In Netscape Composer(version 4.03 +)do a right click on the table, and chose "Properties" then under "cell" chose to make the cell on the left be only 25% of the table.

Put links to all the pages in your site in the left column of the table (you can also put a logo or pictures here to identify the site)AND

In the bottom right cell of the table, you may want to put the same links, or add others. This is also where
- the copyright message,
  
  update message, and
  
  author's name and email (or some way of contacting the webmaster) are listed.
  
  Leave the top right cell of the table blank for your web page info later.
  
  Do a "File/ Save as" and give it a name such as "...temp.html"
  
  Each time you create a new page, open this file up, put in your new information, and do a "Save as" and give it a different name.
  
  From here go onto "Linking Lessons" next.