There are many software programs developed to make creating HTML documents and web sites easier and less time consuming. Some are as simple as a text editing program with an extra menu from which you can select tags to add. Others such as Myrmidon can take nearly any document you have and automatically convert it to HTML and gif images. The WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Editors let you type your documents just as you would in a word processor. The editor then creates all the necessary HTML. When you don't have to worry about the HTML, you can focus on the content, which is why you're making the pages anyway.

There are two very popular WYSIWYG editors, Adobe Page/Site Mill, and Claris Home Page. You can download demo copies of each from their respective web sites, Adobe and Claris. The Adobe demo has the save command disabled, so you can't save any of your work. The Claris demo is fully functional for thirty days, you can save as many documents as you wish in that time. After thirty days you have an option to buy or the save command will be disabled.

I feel that the better buy is the Claris product for several reasons:

• It has an intuitive feel for people familiar with word processing with Word or ClarisWorks.
  
• You can easily and directly tweak the HTML source.
  
• If you paste Spreadsheet cells into a document, it converts them into an HTML table.
  
• When you paste or open images into a document, it automatically converts them to Gif format.
  
• You can use the program to open or save remote documents, eliminating the need for separate FTP uploading.
  
• Version 3.0 makes it incredibly easy to access a FileMaker 4.0 database over the web.

Using Claris Home Page

Claris Home Page is fairly simple to use. Basically you just type your text in the window which comes up as you would in a word processor. You then select the text you want to change and click a button on the toolbar or select an item from a menu.

The image below is a snapshot of the Claris Home Page tool bar. In the program, when you pass over each button, a message will tell you what the button does. To use most of the tools, you need to have selected the text you want formatted before clicking the button.

• The three buttons to the left are for Edit mode, Preview Mode, and HTML Editing Mode. Usually you'll probably want to be in Edit mode. The next button is for Preview in Browser. Claris Home Page will open your page in Netscape or Explorer so you can see what your page will really look like on the internet.
  
• The button with the wrench in it is the object editor. Click on an object and then on this button to get a variety of options such as size, Alternate Name, Transparency and Interlace options, etc.
  
• The button with the arrow in it is the link editor. First highlight some text (or an image) and click this button to get a box where you can type in an internet address. (URL, i.e., http://www.netscape.com/)
  
• The button with the file in it is the document options button. Click here to change background color, font color, and add a title to your page, among other things.
  
• The anchor button lets you add an anchor to part of a page so that you can link to that part of a page and not just the top of the page. Just click the anchor button and enter a name for the anchor. You can now select the anchor from the link editor.
  
• The next button is the Add Link to File button. This is a shortcut button for adding links among files on a disk.
  
• The button with the square, circle and triangle on it is the Add Image button. Click this button and then select an image. Note: Make sure to put an image in the folder of your file first.
  
• The button with the line on it is the Add Rule line button. Use it to add horizontal rule lines to your document.
  
• The button with the grid on it is the Add Table button. Use it to add a table to your document. You can change the number of rows or columns using the object editor.
  
• The buttons with several lines are for left, center, and right alignment.
  
• The pull down menu (reads Normal) allows you to set one of several preset styles to selected text.
  
• If you have a group of paragraphs selected, you can number them or put bullets in front of them by clicking on the Numbered List or Bulleted List buttons. If your list is selected, you can choose to change the format of the numbering (a,b, c or I, II, III, etc.) by selecting the Number Style option from the Format menu.
  
• The a+ and a- buttons allow you to change the relative font size of selected text.
  
• The B and I buttons format text in Bold or Italics, respectively.
  
• The T button formats text in a monospaced font (Teletype), usually Courier in Netscape. This monospaced font can be used for formulas, bits of code, and highlighting certain words.
  
• The A with a color square button makes all selected text whatever color is selected from the pull down menu. If the color you want isn't listed, select other and make your own color.

Note: In Claris Home Page, when you double click on anything an editor comes up from which you can change many aspects of the object you clicked on. For example, when you double click on an image you can set transparency and interlace options.

Let's try to make a page using Claris Home Page:

1. Open the Application Claris Home Page
   
2. Select New Page from the File menu
   
3. Click the document options button to set the title, text color, link color, background color, etc.
   
4. Add some text to the page (your favorite poem or something)
   
5. Use the previously mentioned buttons to format the text. Try to add a rule line, center the text, make it colored, make it bigger or smaller, add bullets, numbers, etc.
   
6. Save your document as filename.html
   
7. Open ClarisWorks, select new drawing document, make a nice picture.
   
8. Select Select All from the Edit menu
   
9. Select Copy from the Edit menu.
   
10. Switch to Claris Home Page, place the cursor where you want the picture to go, and select paste from the Edit menu.
    
11. Save the image in the same folder that your page is saved in.
    
12. Select Save from the File menu to save your document again.
    
13. Click the HTML editing view, and thank goodness you didn't have to write all that out!