Introduction

The authoring tool is provided in the form of a Microsoft Word for Windows document template containing appropriate paragraph styles and macros for editing HTML documents and for generating HTML files from them. The whole package consists of the document template (HTMLAUTH.DOT), a dynamic link library (HTMLAUTH.DLL) and this manual, along with the associated GIF image files. The manual has itself been produced using HTML Author and may either be printed as a Word for Windows document or generated as an HTML page. A complete list of files is provided below.

HTML Author does not work in native HTML format. Your documents are produced and maintained as Word for Windows (.DOC) documents (referred to here as HTML source documents) containing hidden fields that are used by the various macros to maintain HTML related information and to generate the HTML files when required. This process is actually very transparent, and you should never need to edit the HTML code directly.

Although it is not necessary to be an expert on HTML to use HTML Author, it is useful to have some basic knowledge of the World Wide Web, and the structure of HTML documents. The following references provide useful background information:

• A Beginner's Guide to HTML
• HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

This manual assumes a basic knowledge of HTML and WWW terminology, and a working knowledge of word processing in Word for Windows.

What do we mean by WYSIWYG?

Most people know that WYSIWYG means "What You See Is What You Get". However, strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as a WYSIWYG HTML authoring tool. This is because HTML is (almost) totally independent of format. The logical styles that are defined in the HTML document are turned into physical formats by the HTML viewer (such as Netscape), and these will be different depending on the viewer and the way it is configured. Tables are unlikely to be formatted in HTML Author in precisely the same way that they will appear in the HTML viewer. Only the structure of the tables will be the same. For the purpose of HTML Author, the formats used by default in Netscape have been used as the model for the styles you see when editing. For the main paragraph styles (headers, lists, etc.) and character styles, you may change the way these look using the normal Word for Windows facilities.

To see samples taken from the screen of HTML Author whilst editing the manual, click on the items below:

Sample 1

Taken from the top of the source document for the HTML Summary page, showing the appearance of headings, rules and graphics in HTML Author.

Sample 2

Taken from the top end of the table of contents of the source document for the HTML Author manual, showing the appearance of lists (nested), and HTML anchors (the blue underlined text). The table of contents was generated automatically by HTML Author.

HTML Author Toolbars

The toolbars available in HTML Author.

Sample Form

An example of an HTML form as it appears within HTML Author.

Getting Started

To use HTML Author, simply copy the HTMLAUTH.DOT template into your Microsoft Word for Windows templates directory (usually C:\WINWORD\TEMPLATE) and copy the file HTMLAUTH.DLL into your Windows directory (usually C:\WINDOWS). Next, delete the original copy of HTMLAUTH.DOT - i.e. the only copy of HTMLAUTH.DOT on the machine should be the one in the Word Templates directory. (This is necessary to avoid problems whereby Word accesses the wrong copy of the template file.) You may then create an HTML source document using the following steps:

1. Start up Microsoft Word for Windows.
2. Create a new document using the New command from the Microsoft Word Files menu.
3. A dialogue box will appear (headed "New" in English language versions of Word). Select the template 'Htmlauth' and click the OK button.
4. When requested to do so, specify a title for the docment, and save the new document to the required filename (you must use a .DOC filename extension).

You may now start building your HTML Author source document. To generate the actual HTML from this document, see the section on Generating HTML.

A Note About Toolbars

When you open an HTML Author document, or create a new one using the HTML Author template, HTML Author will switch off all toolbars except the HTML Author ones. This is only a temporary change. When you close the last HTML Author document, the toolbars that were closed by HTML Author when the first document was opened or created should be automatically restored. In the unlikely event that this does not happen, you may easily switch the toolbars back on manually using the Toolbars command from the View menu.

Setting HTML Author Options

The Options and Path Options commands in the HTML Author menu allows you to set up a number of optional parameters. These options are described elsewhere in the manual. The Path Options command allows you to define the locations of the HTMLAUTH.INI file (see below), the bookmarks file, and the Netscape browser software, and settings relating to character translation, HTML filename extensions, image filenames, multi-file documents.

HTML Author keeps some information in the file HTMLAUTH.INI. If this file does not exist, HTML Author will create it when required. By default, the file will be placed in the Windows directory. Under normal circumstances, you do not need to worry about this as it is all taken care of automatically. If, however, you wish to place the initialization file in a different directory, you can specify a file pathname in the Options dialogue box.

Note. It is important that the directory you specify for the .INI file does exist.

International Versions of Word

NOTE: It is not necessary to carry out this procedure if you are using an English (UK or US) version of Word.

You may set up HTML Author to run with a non-English version of Word by loading the document INTSETUP.DOC, and then double clicking the button that you will see in that document. This runs a macro that will re-define some of the style names, and some of the macro commands, to those used in your own version of Word. If you do not do this, the HTML generator and a number of other features will not work correctly. This must be done after you have moved the HTMLAUTH.DOT template to your Windows directory.

During the running of this macro, you will be asked to type in some of the special codes used for searching in your language version of Word. These will be the codes representing manual line break, section break, and manual page break. In English version of Word, these are: "^l", "^b", and "^m" respectively (without the quotes). The easiest way to find out the appropriate codes for your non-English version of Word is by invoking the Edit|Find... command, pressing the button marked special in the find dialogue box, and selecting the appropriate special characters from the list. You will need to find these out before doing the international setup. (I haven't found a way to automate this part of the process.)

Note: This procedure makes some changes to the template file itself. It is essential that there is only one copy of the HTMLAUTH.DOT file on the machine when this action is carried out. (See the section headed Getting Started above.) Some users have found that they need to disconnect from the network in order to avoid problems when carrying out the intsetup procedures.

Acknowledgement: Thanks are due to various users, especially Jan Frederik Solem of Oslo College in Norway, Stefan Kaes of Dresdner Bank AG in Germany, and, for their patience and considerable assistance in helping to get HTML Author to work with international versions of Word.