As the Web becomes increasingly embedded into people's lives, more people than ever are publishing their own pages and sites, whether to share a particular passion with like-minded individuals, to communicate with friends and family, or to promote and expand their business. Our Web-creation buying guide by Tim Anderson compiles the best packages that will help you get the most out of the Internet.

What's in a Web Page?

The language of the Web is HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language), or in the latest version XHTML (the X stands for eXtensible). This is plain text, with codes in angle brackets that tell the browser how to lay out the page. In addition, there are other things you can throw into the mix, such as graphics, multimedia add-ons like Flash graphics and Real Video (proprietory software standards), embedded Java applets and scripts (both of these are used to automatically execute commands when activated by the browser) that can run on the Web server or within a Web page. Learning that lot is difficult, particularly considering that on the Web you do not know what browser, or even what type of computer, your readers are using. The solution is to keep things simple at first, and to use an authoring tool that fits your needs. Most Web-authoring tools hide the details of the HTML codes, so that putting together a Web page is as easy as working with a word processor. If you have time, it does pay, however, to learn at least a little about HTML and other page "elements". No Web editor can truly be WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), because of variations in browsers and user settings.

For Novices

NetObject's Fusion MX (upgrade version) is an easy-to-use, good value package that is ideal if you want to lay out pages without having to worry about HTML. A common problem for beginners is that page elements seem to move around unpredictably: you try to put a block of text or an image in the middle of a page, but it leaps to the left margin. The reasons are to do with how HTML works, but Fusion gets round this by doing the necessary work behind the scenes so that it works much like desktop publishing (DTP) software, with page elements that stay where you put them, along with simple tools for managing and uploading entire Web sites. Another good package for beginners is Microsoft's FrontPage 2002 (upgrade version). Unlike Fusion, FrontPage makes it easy to edit HTML directly as the plain code, as well as working with visual layout tools, and has a familiar feel if you are used to Microsoft Office. FrontPage works best if your ISP specifically supports it, as some features use Web-server extensions. Another possibility is SoftQuad's HoTMetaL Pro. Although it has a WYSIWYG view, HoTMetaL offers clever tools for working directly with HTML tags, making it a demanding but powerful product. This one is a good compromise if you are not sure whether a fully visual tool or a more code-orientated approach is best, as HoTMetaL works well in both modes. Macmillan's Web Page Construction Kit 6.0 is aimed at untrained Web users and offers step-by-step Web-site building using wizards and templates. It comes with strong graphics tools and is offered at a budget price.

Professional Tools

Web professionals lean towards Macromedia's Dreamweaver (Macintosh version). Strong points include visual design tools, good support for multiple browsers and platforms and the option of switching seamlessly between visual and HTML editing. There are numerous high-end features such as a Javascript debugger, custom extensions and Timelines for animation with DHTML (Dynamic HTML), while the premium Ultradev edition (upgrade version) adds support for online database access. Dreamweaver's main rival is Adobe's GoLive (upgrade version, Macintosh full edition and upgrade), with good support for DHTML (Dynamic HTML) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), a Dynamic Link feature for adding database access through Active Server Pages (ASP), and a user interface similar to Adobe Photoshop. An essential feature of both Dreamweaver and GoLive is that they do not modify manually written HTML, so that carefully hand-tuned code or program scripts remain in place. The choice between these two depends partly on what other tools you will be using. Macromedia have a suite of Web packages, including Fireworks (Mactinosh version) for Web-optimised graphics and Flash (upgrade version; Macintosh full edition and upgrade) for multimedia animation, and naturally enough Dreamweaver integrates well with these. Equally, GoLive works well with Adobe Illustrator (upgrade version; Macintosh full edition and upgrade) and Photoshop (upgrade; Macintosh version and upgrade) for graphics and LiveMotion (Macintosh version) for animation. It has to be said that Dreamweaver is the current industry favourite, with better third-party support and more books and training material available. Another plus point for Dreamweaver is that (on Windows) it comes bundled with HomeSite 5.0, a code-orientated Web package. You can also get HomeSite separately. This is great for programmers, with features like automatic tag completion, instant insertion of common constructs like tables and integrated online tag reference and validation.

Other Tools for Web-site Creation

Many applications are now able to save documents as Web pages. WordPerfect Office (upgrade version) has basic HTML-export features, while Microsoft Office XP has some sophisticated Web-authoring tools. In Word 2002 (upgrade), from the XP range, you can set compatibility options for browsers from Netscape 3.0 onwards, and even view and edit the HTML source. Traditionally Word has been guilty of creating Web pages bloated by Microsoft-specific tags, but Word XP largely overcomes this with a filtered HTML export option. Microsoft Publisher comes with Web-site wizards and is delightfully easy to use, but has a habit of creating large Web pages that take too long to download. The reason is that fancy fonts and layouts get converted into images, if Publisher cannot find any other way to preserve the appearance. You can get good results from Office applications, but the default settings leave a lot to be desired. Dedicated Web-authoring packages are more reliable for beginners, while professionals need more features, so in the end Office applications have a limited niche for Web publishing. Adobe Acrobat (upgrade version; Macintosh full edition and upgrade) is an exception, a general-purpose product that is widely used on the Web. Acrobat's PDF file format preserves the exact document layout across all the platforms it supports, so it is ideal for manuals and technical documents where that is a priority. Plug-ins let users view PDF from within a browser, or they can download for offline viewing (Adobe's PDF Reader is free to download). PDF files also have security, so you can prevent modification and printing. You would not want to create an entire Web site in PDF, but for those who are using the Web as a way of publishing and distributing documents it has real advantages.