Introduction

The editor 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) 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:

• World Wide Web Primer
• A Beginner's Guide to 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 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.

Title text does not appear in the main text window when viewing an HTML document using Netscape. (It appears as the window banner instead.) For this reason, title text in HTML Author is shown (by default) as white text on a grey background. (Note that title text may only appear as the first paragraph in the document.)

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 Author summary page, showing the appearance of headings and graphics in HTML Author and the HTML Author toolbar. You can also see the format in which "Title" style paragraph is shown.

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.

Getting Started

To use HTML Author, simply copy the HTMLAUTH.DOT template into your Microsoft Word for Windows templates directory. (This will usually be the directory C:\WINWORD\TEMPLATE.) 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. Save the new document to the required filename (you must use a .DOC filename extension).

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

Setting HTML Author Options

The Options command in the HTML Author menu allows you to set up a number of optional parameters. These options are described elsewhere in the manual and are: the location of the HTMLAUTH.INI file (see below), the location of the bookmarks file, settings relating to character translation, and settings related to 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 run this macro 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 copied 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). You can find out the appropriate codes for your non-English version of Word by referring to your Word manual, or by invoking the Edit|Find... command and selecting the appropriate special codes in the find dialogue box. 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: 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.)

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

A Note About Toolbars

To simplify the screen, and to avoid duplication of buttons, HTML Author switches off the Standard and Foarmatting toolbars whenever you load or create an HTML Author document. It is not possible for HTML Author to restore these toolbars when you have finished editing the document. To restore these toolbars yourself, you can select the Toolbars command from the View menu. This gives you a list of all the available toolbars, with check boxes to allow you to switch on the ones you want.