MS word to HTML not loading without MS word on the computer? 2

[annestahl]

Hi there,
I have a question. A client of mine wants to update simple text changes to the website I'm creating, himself in MS word. He's been told that MS word saved pages CANNOT be opened on a computer that does not have word loaded. Is that true? I can't tell, I have ms word.
the test page is :

http://www.beyoga.com/newsite/index.htm

 

[ChrisHunt]

It's not true.

It would be, if the page was saved as a word document, but since it's saved in HTML anyone should be able to read it.

That said, Word is not a good website design tool. The pages it produces are bloated, invalid and sometimes unable to work fully on browsers other than IE.

You'd be better off designing the site with a proper tool for the job (or handcoding it), then letting the client use proper web editing software to maintain it (there are cheap/free ones out there like coffee cup or 1st page 2000). Indeed, once the documents are freed of all that word-generated cruft, inline style declarations and pointless Javascript, they'll be able to make small text amendments using notepad.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[Dashley]

anne,


Just a thought.

Just build him a context manager. Give him an onlne page to put his text in (a simple text box or two) and post it to a database the you site pulls the data from the DB. That way they can change what he wants when they want. We have found that this way works great and then we dont have to teach clients how t write HTML etc..

 

[annestahl]

Hi Chris and Dashley,
thanks for your replies. Believe me I tried to convince them to use FP express or CoffeeCup... now they've signed up to webedit pro (

http://www.webedpro.com).

We'll see. I don't think it's working, but I'm not up to date on that.

Hi Dashley,
can you explain your method? I'm not getting it.

thanks again,
Anne

 

[manarth]

Hi Anne,

I believe Dashley is referring to Content Management Systems (CMS).

These can range from Open Source (See

http://www.opensourcecms.com/

for a good list), to expensive highly complex solutions such as Broadvision (if you've got a few million quid!)

I tend to use CMS Made Simple - it's free, it's fairly stable, it runs on PHP and MySQL, and it's fairly easy to learn.

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please tell us if our suggestion has helped[/li][li]need some help? faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[Dashley]

Anne,

We had several marketing folks at work who were forever changing the front page and other portions of our site for needed marketing reasons. A first the changes were infrequent and it was accomplished by hardcoding the changes. As the frequency of the page changes increased we dedicated certain areas of the page realestate to them and gave them the ability to Dynamically change the text. How we did this was to give them an online carbon copy of the pages in question but with all the text displayed in text boxes. It was a submit form that they could update as it pleased them. We even gave them the ability to chnage the graphics in certail teriitory. Hence the term context manager. They were able to change the text without having to do the HTML. We added a few combo boxexs for them to pick out founts & colors etc... We gave them a preview and an submit(update) button also. They loved it.

Hope this made sense


Dan

 

[annestahl]

Thanks, I have a better idea now. I think that's what they've got with webeditpro. my next step - after the site is roughly done - to get this webedit to work...
thanks again,
Anne

 

[Foamcow]

You could also take a look at Macromedia Contribute.
Inexpensive, uses Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG engine and has nice user management built in to it too!
That said it does have some issues with certain CSS layout methods, any table based layout should be fine though.

http://www.foamcow.com

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