BlogOffice

Creative Webbing

I love using Word to do simple newsletters. I created a simple template that I use for each issue (and the distribution list is saved right in the document header--way cool!). I then email the list and also save it as HTML and make it available on the web. The whole thing, from inspiration to distribution, takes me less than two hours to produce. Gotta love it!

As great as Word is for creating quick documents that port easily from email to print to web, however, it lacks one thing as a web page generator: The ability to add HTML. I wanted a simple way to add META tags so search engines might be a little more likely to pick up my stories. This morning I found a few extra minutes to try something out, and this worked great. Using Word and FrontPage together, I added the META tags while I was live, online. Here's how it's done:

1. Display the page you want to edit (you can do this by opening the file on your hard disk or live, online. I worked directly with the live page on the web.)

2. Click the Edit button down-arrow in the Internet Explorer toolbar. A submenu of editing choices should appear.

3. Click Edit with Microsoft FrontPage.

4. If you're working with a live page, a permissions dialog will appear, asking you to enter the username and password you use for your ftp server access. (This keeps others from being able to access and edit your pages on a whim. And that's a good thing!) Enter your info and click OK.

5. The page appears in HTML format. Find the area you want to modify (in my case, I added tags between the head and /head tags.

6. Press Ctrl+S to save your changes; then choose File > Exit to close FrontPage.

If you want to see whether your changes stuck, press F5 to refresh the page and then choose View > Source to view the HTML in Notepad. Scroll through the code to find your entries. Convinced? Cool, isn't it? Best of both web worlds, fast, simple, and smart. Good way to start the weekend! Happy Friday, everyone! :) k