Customer Reviews

Front Page 2003 For Dummies

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I delved into HTML several years ago and fooled around with it on my personal website but the tedium of having to code every single whisker of a webpage led me to try FrontPage 2000. I loved it but never had the time to learn it well. It speeded my page production but I wasn't satisfied with the results. I put webpage work aside for a couple of years then recently decided to dive in with the completely worked over FrontPage 2003 and dedicate myself to learning it well.

Dornfest's book was a perfect way to break off the rust while at the same time becoming acquainted with the new capabilities of FP2003. I generally am afraid of the DUMMIES series because the authors can go too far trying to be informal and funny, while neglecting the meat of the subject. A page with a cartoon is a wasted page for me when I want to know something. Dornfest shows welcome restraint, holding off on the jokes for the most part and carefully explaining how FP works in clear prose.

The presentation is patient and I found no glitches where something different happens on the screen from what is described in the book. All the basics are here along with introductions to more advanced topics and a great collection of sites to visit for further learning.

I've never written a review before, but I'm so lost after reading this book that I had to warn others before they come down the same road.

I agree with "a reader" that the author will "introduce a topic but, before developing it, tell the reader that she'll explain later how it (method, procedure, &c) should be accomplished." It's enough to drive a person crazy. Also, if you run into a problem, too bad. Troubleshooting is a nontopic in this book.

This book is totally disjointed. The author will introduce a topic but, before developing it, tell the reader that she'll explain later how it (method, procedure, &c) should be accomplished. This infuriating tactic happens repeatedly thereby making it impossible to learn anything. I also suspect that the author does NOT grasp the underlying theoretical/architectural concepts of FrontPage, much less (X)HTML, enough to provide the reader much more than a blind how-to guide. She never explains WHY we choose this option, WHY we pick this menu item, WHY we highlight this text, WHY we insert this file, and so on...

If you don't believe me, look at the reviews of this same author's "FrontPage 2002 with CD-ROM" previous version of this book.

Be skeptical of glowing 5-star reviews from critics who find absolutely no fault with the books they are reviewing. "Before reading xxxx I knew absolutely nothing but after devouring this paragon of perfection I am now totally conversant with the subject of yyyy."

This is a terrible book. I am a total novice in FrontPage and web page creation but have lots of experience in computers including programming years ago.

Usually I am the one everyone asks questions of with computers.
I was unable find the Button she talked about on the 3rd page. I searched everywhere for it and asked Microsoft and HELP and still haven't found it. She assumes you know where things are but we DON'T. very frustrating experience.

This is the first of the dummies series of books I have used. I read it from cover to cover and practised before I started on my real website. I then used the book as a reference and found it extremely helpful. The website is now published. Some sections were basic formatting that I already knew so I just skimmed over these sections but on the whole a great help.

Easy to read and understand. I already had a basic understanding of FrontPage but this book is a great intro and taught me some new tricks too.

This book covers a lot of the fuctionality of Frontpage 2003. It is easy to read and includes specific instructions with extra little hints thrown in. When I first used Frontpage I was expecting a product that helped me create html pages. It does that but the book helped me to understand the site management aspect of the product also. A great jumpstart to using the software.

The book is too generalized. People who would buy this are web publishers who know SOMETHING about the web and HTML. The book is disappointing in that it really doesn't tell you HOW to do anything! This is a problem. Front Page comes with no instructions, so it must be intuitively figured out. You'll do better just playing with the program. Of course, no web designer in his right mind will condone using this most-terrible program in the first place...maybe it's why MS no longer makes it.

There isn't much life left to Front Page. Microsoft has discontinued the product (which is a shame, but a reality). I still have a couple of old Front Page sites up and they are succumbing to some malady that causes malfunction in the forms. I have to revise and recreate them in Dreamweaver, but I just can't find the time. Therefore, this book was a lifesaver in that it allowed me to find, at least, short-term solutions that allow the sites to stay up a little longer. Not much else is available, so I was lucky to find this book and that it explained, easily and concisely, what I needed to do for those problems that have a solution (and to understand why some problems just can't be fixed).

This product was very informative and easy to read. I bought it because we are trying to implement an e-zine type of publication at my firm. With the drop in the economy, any money we can save on training is well worth the effort.