FP2000: How to Use FrontPage to Edit Office HTML (234616)

SUMMARY

All of the Microsoft Office 2000 programs can create Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) files, and HTML files created with a specific Office program are normally opened in the program that created the file. For example, if you attempt to use Microsoft PowerPoint to open an HTML file that was created in Microsoft Word, Word automatically starts and opens the HTML file.

When you use Microsoft FrontPage to edit an HTML file created by any Office program, you may inadvertently delete sections of the HTML code that are required by the Office program that originally created the file. You might also add HTML code through FrontPage that may not appear the same when you open the HTML document in the Office program that originally created the HTML file. To prevent either of these situations from occurring, FrontPage becomes the default editor for a file when you save the file with FrontPage.

MORE INFORMATION

All of the Office 2000 programs can create HTML files, which can be opened in any browser capable of viewing HTML files, and the files appear the same in a binary format as they do in HTML format. Extensible Markup Language (XML) provides the ability to make HTML files that look acceptable in any browser appear substantially the same as their binary counterpart. Each Office 2000 program is designed to process its own subset of the XML tags created by the program.

When any Office program opens an HTML file created by another Office program, it first determines which Office program last saved the file and then opens the program to edit the file. A META tag is used to assign as the default editor the program that saved the file. The META tag is in the head of the HTML document and refers to a ProgID. For example, the following META tag tells any Office program that the default editor of the file is PowerPoint:

<meta name=ProgId content=PowerPoint.Slide>

FrontPage includes a dedicated HTML editor, which gives you complete control over the formatting and content of your HTML code. When you open an HTML file in FrontPage, you can click Open in Microsoft FrontPage to override the META tag and open the file in FrontPage instead of the Office program that created the file.

When you override the META tag and use FrontPage to edit an HTML file created by another Office program, you may inadvertently alter some XML or HTML tags so that when the file is opened in the Office document that originally created the document, unexpected or unintended results may occur. For example, you may notice distorted tables, and missing or moved graphics and text.

Microsoft recommends always using the original Office program to edit your HTML files. If you override this behavior to delete or re-arrange the HTML using FrontPage, Microsoft recommends continuing to edit the file with FrontPage from that point forward.