The purpose of these pages is to help you get the software you need onto your computer and to use that software to create some simple pages and put them onto the Web. (My recommendations focus on the free stuff, because I usually find that if I buy something before I really know what I'm doing, I always wind up buying something that I don't really like.)
The "Prerequisite" for these pages is that you already understand how to organize your work into separate directories and how to download software. If you get stuck anywhere as you go through this, go back and look through my "Getting Started" document, which discusses these and other issues.
There are also suggestions about where to go for more information and training.
There are two different tasks -
I recommend that you start by creating just a page or two. Learn how the entire process works before you start creating (or converting) lots of documents. You'll learn quite a lot as you go through the process and it's rather demoralizing to have to go back and make improvements in ten documents at once.
There are lots of software options for these tasks. I will tell you how to get some free, easy-to-use, software to do each of these. These may not be the easiest, or even the clearest. I have described the easiest method I know that uses good free software.
After you get started, then it's time to think about how to fit
your Web pages together, etc. I have a short discussion
that will take you through your first big push of putting a bunch
of documents up. If you want to know about more specialized Web
software that costs around $100 per program, we have more information
available.
You can either use specialized software or, in many cases, you can just use your word-processing software.
I began by learning to convert my Word for Windows 6.0 documents to HTML, using an add-on for Word which I downloaded from the Microsoft Website. I think this is a fine way to deal with Web pages if you have lots of already-existing documents. The Word 7.0 add-on is even better and then Word 97 has all of this built in and looks a lot like the special Web-authoring software.
Perhaps your software already does HTML. Go to the menu to save a file and choose "Save As". See if one of the options is HTML. If your word-processing software does not have HTML as one of the "Save As" options, then you need to look up the company on the Web and see if you can download a free "add-on". Go to the company's website and follow the links for downloading free software or free add-ons. Microsoft, WordPerfect, Adobe, Lotus Download the appropriate software and follow the instructions to install it. If you have trouble, ask a friend who knows a bit more about computers and software to help you do this. (I couldn't find the add-on on the WordPerfect page recently, although it was there last summer. John Hastings at ACC still has a copy of that add-on for WordPerfect so the ACC people who need it can ask him for it.)
I understand that the WordPerfect add-ons has the serious limitation that you can't edit an HTML document. If you really want to work with HTML documents, you probably won't find this adequate. (No doubt the newer versions will handle this better!) However, you can use this capability to convert your WordPerfect files to HTML and then use the specialized software (or Word) to edit them.
If you're using software that is older than the versions listed by the company for add-ons, you can either upgrade your software or get one of the special programs. My recommendation is to try AOLPress first, which is free. It is described in the second paragraph below here.
I have helped several people get started using their word processor for creating Web pages. My document Putting Text Documents on the Web summarizes the main things I told them and helped them work through.
However, Word for Windows 2.0 or 6.0/7.0 is not as "user-friendly"
as some of the special software when
you start thinking about graphics. So, if your goal is to create
a nice-looking page with nice graphics, you may want to try specialized
software. Many different programs are available, but I recommend
AOLPress, which is free. It was developed by America On Line and
is as user-friendly as most of their software. It is easy to download
and install and, when it opens, gives you the option of a tutorial.
I think you'll like that tutorial as well (or better than) a workshop
on creating Web pages. Try it!! (Go to www.aolpress.com
and follow the download links. If you are asked for a username
and password, use ap20 for both.)
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Obtaining Web directories and file transfer software:
First decide where your Web page will be. If you're a staff member at ACC, here is a description of how to start. If you want a free personal Web page, you might consider Geocities. I wrote my observations on this when I got my page.
The Internet provider who will host your Webpage probably has instructions about how to upload files to it. If not, try to follow my directions given above for ACC staff members. Those are pretty similar to putting up pages on Illuminati Online and RealTime (which I have done). I have also worked with America On Line and Geocities, each of which has special software for creating Web pages and uploading them to their accounts very easily.
There are a multitude of ways to create Web pages and to upload them to the Web. Some of the special software packages do all of this. If you get one of those and get it installed correctly, that's great!
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If you are already more sophisticated about the Web than either of these groups or if you just like to do lots of research first or if you want to start out by buying a special program to create Web pages, you can look through the information that I have collected here. This is a compendium of places to get information about various programs. I hope that you will find it to be a good resource, but I think it will be a lot more useful to people after they have been doing Web pages for a few months. I suggest that you start out on free software to learn about the possibilities and then, after you have developed some expertise you can choose what more sophisticated program will be the most useful to you.
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