Customer Reviews

Microsoft Expression Web 4 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))

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

 

 

I am moving from FrontPage to Expression Web 4, so I'm not a total novice. I bought Sam's 24-hour handbook, and ran into snags that made me give up. So I bought this handbook by someone who clearly is an experienced author approved by Microsoft. I'm literally going "step by step" and am learning a lot, with a minimum of snags or unclear instructions. Once I've reached the end (it will take awhile because there are 500-plus pages... but luckily I am not under pressure to learn it overnight or in "24 hours"), I'll be pretty savvy, and I'll have a good reference book to use for my own site. A bonus is the online tutorial, plus the practice files you download and use in the lessons.

I found the book to be very helpful. I used FrontPage before switching to Expressions Web 4 and do find the new program to be a lot more difficult than FrontPage. Expressions is a much more fuller program and would take more time and effort to learn. The book was instrumental in making that process much easier.

I bought this book for someone else who gave up in chapter two. I picked it up, and if not for my years of experience would have given up in chapter two as well. I don't understand why he jumps right in to installing alternate PHP engines, and making the Development Server functional. Not only is such immediate depth unnecessary, in some cases the instructions either aren't right, or other cases unclear. In chapter one, we're installing alternate browsers, and adjusting settings that no normal user has an idea about. ...and all of this before we just simply create a site from a template. I know Website design can be as deep and complex as a person wants, but it doesn't have to start out that way. Simple web pages are, well, simple. But this book scared away the potential helper I thought I had lined up.

Don't believe the Microsoft propaganda. This book is horrible. It is all text with a few B&W photos. Very slow to go through the exercises. The book doesn't explain why you are doing certain exercises. So basically you're just going through the motions without learning anything. There are much better options out there, luckily.

Seems to be a good book for learning Expression Web 4. I say seems because Microsoft Web 4 in my case kept "not responding", freezing, crashing and ran extremely slow. I even contacted the author of this book about the situation and he was going to relay what was happening to Microsoft. Sadly no reply from Microsoft.

So I stopped using EW4 and went back to EW3 which ran fine. So I never used the book to learn Expression Web 4. But from browsing through the book it has a straightforward approach. And for anyone who has purchased Expression Web 4 you already know that this program has so many options and functions you need something as a reference. This is from the prospective of someone who was using 4 different versions of FrontPage and 1 of Dreamweaver.

Step by Step Expression Web 4 By Chris Leeds is being under-advertised solely as a textual manual.It has associated a heap of on-line exercises which are not being advertised. Moreover, this is a current manual dated October 2010.I am a relatively ignorant novice web site developer. I have cut my teeth on FrontPage. I am working through this tutorial and I can actually understand it and its on-line exercises. It is an excellent product.Microsoft Expression Web 4 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))

I wanted to learn EW4 so I could use it to write my own web site. This book helped me do that. Although the book has a significant number of typos in it which caused me a lot of frustration, still the examples that were chosen and the way the book is laid out enabled me, a beginner, to start using EW4. A few of the examples did not work for me. If you get this book, go to their web page for errata and print that out. Keep it with you when you read the book and constantly refer to it. This will help you get over the typos in the book. My comment to Microsoft Press is, before you publish a book like this have a newbie go through the steps and mark up the errors, typos and examples that do not work and fix them. You will encourage your readers to buy the next "how to" book that you publish.

It really really really is helping me a lot with this new web program from Microsoft. It is pretty easy to understand.

Excellent book, a few errors, and several places it was hard to follow. But it give you a excellent atart at building or maintaining a web site. I would buy a book written by Chris Leeds again.

The book could be very informational but..... I am finding most of it is written as a follow along with lesson files you must download. The book does not come with a lesson disc. To get the files you must go to [...] set up a free account that requires a credit card and you only get a free 10 day pass. This is ware I stopped. The book requires lesson files to follow along and they are not included, Hmmmm? I purchased a incomplete book IMO, THEY DO NOT COME WITH THE LESSON DISCS. Without the disc/lesson files it is extremely hard to follow along. I must now create an account using my credit card information to get something that should have been included. I feel I have been taken and am debating returning the book. I am not sure I will ever buy a Microsoft Press book again. I see they have a feedback link [...] that I will be leaving feedback on.