Using Word as an HTML editor

[Michael Laplante]

If you've read this far at all you're probably ready to jump in with the
view that Word is possibly the WORST html editor ever.

But. . .

Word can actually be a useful html TEXT editor. The trick is to use it in
"Recover text from any file" mode. If you open an html file in that mode, it
opens the file in text mode, not html view.

You can then use Word's powerful text handling features such as "Insert
file,"Auto Correct, search and replace, etc to create and add code snippets,
etc. You can also use font and background colours, text formatting, etc as
visual aids when creating "sections" within your file. You can use the
comments features to add notes to yourself.

Get creative and you can probably think of a few good ideas of your own
using Word's numerous features.

When it comes time to save the file, choose to save it as a TEXT file, but
give it the .htm extension. The first time you do that, Word will remember
the file name and you only need hit Ctrl-S periodically to save your file
during that editing session. If you want to save the file for future
editing, remember to save it in native Word format. The next time you open
it, your html will be opened as text complete with all the text formatting
you applied before to aid you in your page editing.

Hope this helps someone looking for a good HTML text editor. . .

M

 

[oldwetdog]

If you've read this far at all you're probably ready to jump in with the
view that Word is possibly the WORST html editor ever.

But. . .

Word can actually be a useful html TEXT editor. The trick is to use it in
"Recover text from any file" mode. If you open an html file in that mode, it
opens the file in text mode, not html view.

You can then use Word's powerful text handling features such as "Insert
file,"Auto Correct, search and replace, etc to create and add code snippets,
etc. You can also use font and background colours, text formatting, etc as
visual aids when creating "sections" within your file. You can use the
comments features to add notes to yourself.

Get creative and you can probably think of a few good ideas of your own
using Word's numerous features.

When it comes time to save the file, choose to save it as a TEXT file, but
give it the .htm extension. The first time you do that, Word will remember
the file name and you only need hit Ctrl-S periodically to save your file
during that editing session. If you want to save the file for future
editing, remember to save it in native Word format. The next time you open
it, your html will be opened as text complete with all the text formatting
you applied before to aid you in your page editing.

Hope this helps someone looking for a good HTML text editor. . .

M

I suspect you work for, or paid by, Bill Gates...

never mind...

<soapbox>
However, forget using Word for editing or writing anything which
you will later use in any kind of code, including HTML

Not only are there the added steps needed as above, but when you
save your file, even in ASCII Text mode, Word embeds characters
which you then must search for and remove.

Word works fine for a spell checker...

otherwise, use a tool for your purpose, not a tool poorly
designed to be everything to everybody.
</soapbox>


owd

 

[verity]

If you've read this far at all you're probably ready to jump in with the
view that Word is possibly the WORST html editor ever.

But. . .

Word can actually be a useful html TEXT editor. The trick is to use it in
"Recover text from any file" mode. If you open an html file in that mode, it
opens the file in text mode, not html view.

You can then use Word's powerful text handling features such as "Insert
file,"Auto Correct, search and replace, etc to create and add code snippets,
etc. You can also use font and background colours, text formatting, etc as
visual aids when creating "sections" within your file. You can use the
comments features to add notes to yourself.

Get creative and you can probably think of a few good ideas of your own
using Word's numerous features.

When it comes time to save the file, choose to save it as a TEXT file, but
give it the .htm extension. The first time you do that, Word will remember
the file name and you only need hit Ctrl-S periodically to save your file
during that editing session. If you want to save the file for future
editing, remember to save it in native Word format. The next time you open
it, your html will be opened as text complete with all the text formatting
you applied before to aid you in your page editing.

Hope this helps someone looking for a good HTML text editor. . .

M

Thanks for info, I'm sure it works OK but I suspect beginners, like me,
should stick to a simpler text editor. Crawl before running

 

[verity]

I suspect you work for, or paid by, Bill Gates...

never mind...

<soapbox>
However, forget using Word for editing or writing anything which
you will later use in any kind of code, including HTML

Not only are there the added steps needed as above, but when you
save your file, even in ASCII Text mode, Word embeds characters
which you then must search for and remove.

Word works fine for a spell checker...

otherwise, use a tool for your purpose, not a tool poorly
designed to be everything to everybody.
</soapbox>


owd

Good grief, I'm actually starting to understand this stuff.

 

[Michael Laplante]

Not only are there the added steps needed as above, but when you save your
file, even in ASCII Text mode, Word embeds characters which you then must
search for and remove.

Hmmm, maybe you could expand on that. I use Word 97 and when I save as text
there's nothing extra in my files.

But, yes, there's a whole two extra initial steps involved. However, that
inconvenience is more than offset by the tricks I described previously.

Nor, I suspect, is this technique limited to Word. Probably Open Office,
Corel products and similar could probably be adapted in the same way.
Another trick -- if you use Word's styles, you can even define your own
syntax highlighting. Create and apply text styles, vice paragraph styles.

M

 

[Dylan Parry]

verity wrote:

[Using MS Word as a text editor]

Thanks for info, I'm sure it works OK but I suspect beginners, like me,
should stick to a simpler text editor. Crawl before running

In this case it's more like learning to crawl before falling flat on
your face and breaking your nose, resulting in a bloody mess that you
wish you hadn't thought about trying in the first place

 

[Edwin van der Vaart]

Hope this helps someone looking for a good HTML text editor. . .

There are a lot of them.
Hereby a list of editors.
HTML for free:
jedit : http://www.jedit.org/
nedit : http://www.nedit.org/
ewisoft : http://www.ewisoft.com/
netpadd : http://www.netpadd.com/
araneae : http://www.ornj.net/software/araneae/
1st page : http://www.evrsoft.com/
crimson : http://crimsoneditor.com/
ezpad : http://www.mmedia.is/ezpad/
acehtml : http://software.visicommedia.com/en/products/acehtmlfreeware/
notetab light : http://www.notetab.com/
html-kit : http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
context : http://www.fixedsys.com/context/
pspad : http://www.pspad.com/en/index.html
websmill : http://www.xtreeme.com/websmill/
metapad : http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/
quanta (linux) : http://freeware.acehtml.com/
tswebeditor : http://tswebeditor.net.tc/
notespad : http://www.newbie.net/NotesPad/index.html
grey matter pro : http://www.pagetutor.com/misc/grey.html
editpad lite : http://www.editpadlite.com/editpadlite.html
stones webwrite : http://www.webwriter.dk/english/index.htm
matizha sublime :
http://www.dohnews.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&file=index&func=display&ceid=3&meid=4
nvu : http://www.nvu.com/
SciTE : http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/SciTE.html
Notepad++ : http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
vim : http://www.vim.org/download.php
FCK-Editor : http://www.fckeditor.com/

HMTL not for free:
textpad : http://www.textpad.com/
notetab : http://www.notetab.com/
editplus : http://www.editplus.com/
ultraedit : http://www.idmcomp.com/
editpad : http://www.editpadpro.com/
hypertext studio: http://www.olsonsoft.com/
namo : http://www.namo.com/products/webeditor/
acehtml pro : http://www.visicommedia.com/acehtml/
ibm websphere : http://www-3.ibm.com/software/webservers/hpbuilder/
spider writer : http://www.actiprosoftware.com/Products/SpiderWriter/
Zues : http://www.zeusedit.com/

PHP for free
phpedit : http://phpedit.org/
Winsyntax : http://www.dirfile.com/arisesoft_winsyntax.htm
devphp : http://devphp.sourceforge.net/
phpcoder : http://www.phpide.com/programs.php
Davor's PHP Editor: http://www.pleskina.com/dphped/main.php
php designer : http://www.mpsoftware.dk/

PHP not for free:
phped : http://www.nusphere.com/products/
top php studio : http://www.top-systems.net/
dzsoft php editor: http://www.dzsoft.com/dzphp.htm
Expert Editor : http://www.ankord.com/phpxedit.html
komodo : http://www.activestate.com/Products/Komodo/
maguma studio/workbench: http://www.maguma.com/

PHP comming soon:
HydraPHP: http://www.coldmind.com/

XML for free:
xmlpro2 : http://www.vervet.com/
cooktop : http://www.xmlcooktop.com/
xray : http://architag.com/xray/
peters xml eiditor: http://www.iol.ie/~pxe/
morphon : http://www.morphon.com/xmleditor/index.shtml

XML not for free:
xopus : http://xopus.com/
editml : http://www.editml.com/
xmlwriter: http://www.xmlwriter.net/
oxygen pro: http://www.oxygenxml.com/
blueprint: http://www.xmlblueprint.com/
xmlspy : http://www.xmlspy.com/products_ide.html
turboxml: http://www.tibco.com/software/business_integration/turboxml.jsp

XML for free and not free
xmlmind : http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/
--
Edwin van der Vaart
http://www.semi-conductor.nl/ Links to Semiconductors sites
http://www.evandervaart.nl/ Edwin's persoonlijke web site
Explicitly no permission given to Forum4Designers, onlinemarketingtoday,
24help.info, issociate.de, velocityreviews, umailcampaign.com,
gthelp.com, webfrustration.com, excip.com and many other to duplicate
this post.

 

[Toby Inkster]

Another trick -- if you use Word's styles, you can even define your own
syntax highlighting. Create and apply text styles, vice paragraph styles.

What's the point when there are far better text editors that have
*automatic* syntax highlighting.

http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

 

[David Segall]

Hereby a list of editors.

HMTL not for free:

I'm surprised that the two most popular editors, Adobe Dreamweaver
<http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/> and Microsoft FrontPage

ibm websphere : http://www-3.ibm.com/software/webservers/hpbuilder/

IBM have dropped WebSphere Studio Homepage Builder which did belong in
this category. They do offer Rational Web Developer for WebSphere
Software
<http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/developer/web/index.html >
which is a complete IDE for developing web applications and I think it
is too complicated to include here.

 

[Edwin van der Vaart]

I'm surprised that the two most popular editors, Adobe Dreamweaver
<http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/> and Microsoft FrontPage
<http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010858021033.aspx>, are not on
this list.

They will be listed the next time when somebody ask for editors.

IBM have dropped WebSphere Studio Homepage Builder which did belong in
this category. They do offer Rational Web Developer for WebSphere
Software
<http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/developer/web/index.html >
which is a complete IDE for developing web applications and I think it
is too complicated to include here.

But they still offer WebSphere see at:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/sw-bycategory/subcategory/SW710.html
--
Edwin van der Vaart
http://www.semi-conductor.nl/ Links to Semiconductors sites
http://www.evandervaart.nl/ Edwin's persoonlijke web site
Explicitly no permission given to Forum4Designers, onlinemarketingtoday,
24help.info, issociate.de, velocityreviews, umailcampaign.com,
gthelp.com, webfrustration.com, excip.com and many other to duplicate
this post.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Hmmm, maybe you could expand on that. I use Word 97 and when I save as text
there's nothing extra in my files.

You can get the special curly quotes, the ellipse character and such
sometimes. But I agree that Word can be an excellent way to compose your
content, its spell checker and grammar checker is very good and better
than most products dedicated to webpage creation. Just do not let Word
generate the markup!

But, yes, there's a whole two extra initial steps involved. However, that
inconvenience is more than offset by the tricks I described previously.

Nor, I suspect, is this technique limited to Word. Probably Open Office,
Corel products and similar could probably be adapted in the same way.
Another trick -- if you use Word's styles, you can even define your own
syntax highlighting. Create and apply text styles, vice paragraph styles.

Agree entirely. Word processors are very good at what they are supposed
to do, compose and process words. I see not problem to use the tool best
suited for the operation at hand (I do the same in fact). Composition I
use a word processor Word, image preparation I use Photo-paint, webpage
markup Notepad and Crimson Editor. I believe using more than one tool,
each specially suited to its task is a much better approach than these
all-in-one tools that really do not do any of the specialized tasks very
well.

 

[David Segall]

But they still offer WebSphere see at:
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/sw-bycategory/subcategory/SW710.html

Agreed, but it is so much more than an HTML editor that I think it is
too complicated to include in your list. On the other hand, if you
want to include it, you probably should also include Oracle's
JDeveloper <http://www.oracle.com/tools/jdev_home.html> in your free
list. Both these products are aimed at programmers who may need to add
some HTML pages to their web applications and the WYSIWYG HTML editor
in JDeveloper is as good as any other WYSIWYG editor I have tried
except for Dreamweaver.

I should add that these posts are intended only to keep your list
up-to-date and that I think a comprehensive list like yours is a
valuable addition to this group.

 

[oldwetdog]

Good grief, I'm actually starting to understand this stuff.

Then I guess there IS hope for me... ;-)

 

[Edwin van der Vaart]

Agreed, but it is so much more than an HTML editor that I think it is
too complicated to include in your list.

I noticed that when I was looking at the site.

On the other hand, if you want to include it, you probably should also
include Oracle's JDeveloper <http://www.oracle.com/tools/jdev_home.html>
in your free list. Both these products are aimed at programmers who may
need to add some HTML pages to their web applications and the WYSIWYG
HTML editor in JDeveloper is as good as any other WYSIWYG editor I have
tried except for Dreamweaver.

Dreamwaver is a nice editor for beginners, sometimes the editor messes
the codes up. That's why I switched to a text-editors like vi, gedit,
notepad, emacs, etc.

I should add that these posts are intended only to keep your list
up-to-date and that I think a comprehensive list like yours is a
valuable addition to this group.

Thank you.
There was a person who made this list. That person is Brucie. I only
maintain the list of editors
--
Edwin van der Vaart
http://www.semi-conductor.nl/ Links to Semiconductors sites
http://www.evandervaart.nl/ Edwin's persoonlijke web site
Explicitly no permission given to Forum4Designers, onlinemarketingtoday,
24help.info, issociate.de, velocityreviews, umailcampaign.com,
gthelp.com, webfrustration.com, excip.com and many other to duplicate
this post.

 

[oldwetdog]

Hmmm, maybe you could expand on that. I use Word 97 and when I save as text
there's nothing extra in my files.

But, yes, there's a whole two extra initial steps involved. However, that
inconvenience is more than offset by the tricks I described previously.

Nor, I suspect, is this technique limited to Word. Probably Open Office,
Corel products and similar could probably be adapted in the same way.
Another trick -- if you use Word's styles, you can even define your own
syntax highlighting. Create and apply text styles, vice paragraph styles.

M

Yes, I suppose Corel and Open Office could do the same kind of
thing, but again, Why make MORE work for ourselves?

The right tool for the job, not one monstrous inefficient tool
for ALL jobs.

But, that's my own pref...

 

[verity]

Then I guess there IS hope for me... ;-)

There's always hope,
not always faith & charity though.

 

[oldwetdog]

There's always hope,
not always faith & charity though.

Hope springs eternal....

Now Faith was a pretty lass, pert smile and bright eyes, while
her sister charity was a bytch...

Oooops wrong page...

actually, both Hope and Faith are within you, and I think you
have demonstrated that..

Charity, now... No, it can be as rare as trust, and grudging
charity is a bitter brew indeed.

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Seems like a long climb for a short ride, doesn't it?

 

[Andy Dingley]

Hmmm, maybe you could expand on that. I use Word 97 and when I save as text
there's nothing extra in my files.

There's no such thing as "Word", especially when it comes to HTML
editing.

'97 was borderline usable for such things, although far from good.
Word 2000 broke and 2003 is a complete and utter abomination. 2003
isn't even very good as a word-processor -- they changed significant
behaviours around collapsing margins so that many old Word docs no
longer print correctly, they broke the style editing user interface and
they added the appalling "Research" feature that sends commercially
sensitive copies of your document content to M$oft, without any sort of
confirmation beforehand.

Secondly, your claims of "good editing features", "search and replace"
etc. aren't a patch on freeware or very cheap editors like TextPad or
jEdit. Word really just isn't a good choice here, however you call it.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Dreamwaver is a nice editor for beginners,

If beginners begin with Dreamweaver then they'll find it very difficult
to learn to do things properly.

DW perpetuates two huge myths:
- HTML is hard
- HTML needs expensive tools.
Neither of these has any justification.

Dramweaver is a poor tool. It teaches lots iof mis-truths, it
encourages poor coding and it discourages good CSS use. It's often
advocated as "a powerful tool for commercial use on short timescales",
which might have had some justification for 3.2 <table> code in the
last century, but is no longer the case.

It's also advocated that "poor naive little users" _need_ the
hand-holding of Dreamweaver because their little heads will explode if
we ask them to work in a smarter manner, even though this is admittedly
a little more thought. I'd suggest (having personally taught
"community access web design courses") that they need the cash they
would have wasted on buying it a lot more!