Microsoft Expression Web For Dummies

Overview

In this chapter, you get started with Expression Web: You get familiar with the workspace and find out how to create and save Web sites. Before you hang your shingle as a Web publisher, though, you should understand what you're really doing when you create and publish a Web site. No doubt you've already seen a Web site. Web sites are the places you visit as you make your way around the World Wide Web. In the same way as a book is made up of individual pages, a Web site is made up of individual files called Web pages. Web pages contain the text, pictures, and other content you see when you visit a Web site.

As you construct a Web site, you create Web pages and then string the pages together by using hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are the highlighted words and pictures inside the page that visitors can click to jump to a different location, page, or Web site. Hyperlinks can also initiate a download or pop open an e-mail window.

After your site is complete, you publish it. In other words, you make the site visible to the rest of the world on the World Wide Web (or, if you're working on an internal company site, on the company's intranet). This process isn't automatic. For a Web site to be live, you must transfer the site's files from your computer to a Web server, a host computer that runs special Web server software and is connected to the Internet 24 hours per day.

If you're working on an intranet site, the publishing process is similar, except that only people with a password to access the intranet can view your site. An intranet is an internal company network based on the same type of technology as the Internet, with access restricted to people within that company. Intranet sites generally contain information useful to company insiders, such as policies, collaborative tools, and department announcements.

Many people gain access to a host Web server by signing up for an account with an Internet service provider (or ISP) that makes Web server space available to its users. Others use a Web server maintained by their workplaces or schools. Another option is to sign up with one of the many hosting companies that offer server space for free.