Has anyone used Microsoft Publisher to design their website? I plan taking classes at my local community college this summer to learn Dreamweaver. Until that times comes I was planning on using Microsoft Publisher to design my website.

I have Publisher, but haven't used it for creating a website. I did play with the templates a bit that come with it and just found them too restrictive. I actually started using Dreamweaver not too long ago and I found it really easy to use and figure out. If you can, I'd recommend just going with Dreamweaver.

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Kimberly
Facebook Marketing Magic!

I wouldn't recommend it. MS Publisher was meant for home use and playing with DTP but not meant for commercial reproduction and definitely not for business websites. It bulks up the html coding and makes a total mess, plus it's very obvious when a site has been designed with this program.

If you don't want to pay out for a webpublishing program and want a professional looking site then I would encourage you to consider using www.blogger.com (free hosted) or wordpress.org (paid hosting) and use either of these to practice/learnt your skills but have a professional looking site at the same time. They have thousands of free templates available to them and over time you can learn to edit and tweak the templates to suit your needs.

Originally Posted by ShanteM

Has anyone used Microsoft Publisher to design their website? I plan taking classes at my local community college this summer to learn Dreamweaver. Until that times comes I was planning on using Microsoft Publisher to design my website.

I've used Publisher a lot, but not for building a website. So can't help you there.

Since you have a Dreamweaver class coming up, maybe you want a quicker option to tide you over until then. You may already know about these, but just in case you don't, you can get a free hosted site that has much of the work done for you. One I know of is Wordpress.com - it starts out as a blog, but you can add regular pages and you can pick from many themes. Another I've heard of is Microsoft Office Live. These are free, so you could just try them out and see how you like them. I know there are others, but would need someone else to chime in here with them.

Or if you wanted to get your own domain name and pick a host, some of them have their own website templates. Or you could use Wordpress.org (also free), which you would install at your site and then customize as you need.

Just some other options in case you hadn't heard of them already.

Deb

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Deb at Ivy Freelance
Metrics, Marketing and Macros

Do not use Publisher for your website. It was not designed for that purpose and you will run into problems. I agree with others, use a free site until you are ready for Dreamweaver. It will save you time in long run.

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Lee Drozak
My Office Assistant

I am using http://godaddy.com

I first got my domain with them and now I am building my website. It is very easy to use and not that expensive.

Cindy

I concur with the others - Publisher is for general DTP. I have used Dreamweaver for 7 years. It is easy to use though knowing and understanding coding will reduce some frustrations when the WYSIWIG doesn't match reality. I also recommend a Photoshop class. You do not need a full blown, high end class but I cannot stress enough the usefulness and applicability of the program. Lastly - be sure you learn and understand CSS - vital to help with SEO.

I went through Yahoo for my domain and web hosting. They have a Site Builder through which you can use one of their ready made templates or you can create from scratch. I didn't want to use a template so I just did my own thing. It's not difficult to use once you get used to it (I had no web design experience and was able to figure it out). You can bring in Dreamweaver pages, flash, etc. but I haven't yet done that.

Definitely don't recommend Publisher for creating a web page. At the hospital I worked at we created a intranet web page for our individual department in Publisher.....it was not a great page at all. About a year ago they finally redid the page in Dreamweaver and it's much, much better.

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Kari Thevenot, Virtual Assistant
www.yourlefthand.net

Thanks for the advice. I'm happy that I did not start using Publisher for my website. It's seems like that would have led to disappointment.