Member Avatar for charisma

How do I go about converting frontpage 2003 to dreamweaver 8?

  • 3 Contributors
  • 5 Replies
  • 202 Views
  • 1 Week Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by cohen

Dani AI

Generated

A practical, low-risk workflow for moving a FrontPage 2003 site into Dreamweaver 8, and what to expect.

A recommended sequence:

  1. Make a full backup of the FrontPage site (entire web root plus any hidden metadata and form-handler files).
  2. Export or copy the site to a local folder (FrontPage's "publish to folder" or a direct filesystem copy). Keep the backup intact; FrontPage metadata can be removed from the working copy.
  3. Create a new Dreamweaver site that points at the local folder and open the pages in Split view to inspect both code and design.
  4. Remove or replace FrontPage-only artifacts (navigation webbot code, server-side components and any vti metadata). Use a project-wide Find to locate strings like "webbot" and review each occurrence before deleting.
  5. Move inline styles into an external stylesheet and build a Dreamweaver template (.dwt) for header/nav/footer so changes propagate across pages.
  6. Convert FrontPage forms and server-side features to standard handlers (ASP.NET, PHP, or an external form service) and test on a staging server before going live.

Example skeleton for replacing a FrontPage nav with semantic markup and an external stylesheet:

<nav>
  <ul class="mainnav">
    <li><a href="index.html">Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="about.html">About</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>
/* styles.css */
.mainnav { list-style:none; margin:0; padding:0; }
.mainnav li { display:inline; margin-right:1em; }

Notes and troubleshooting: is correct that saving pages as HTML and opening them in Dreamweaver is a quick start, but FrontPage-only features will remain and need manual cleanup. 's point about HTML experience matters: Dreamweaver's visual tools help, but basic HTML/CSS knowledge makes the conversion far smoother. Keep the original site backup until the new site is fully tested on the target host.

Recommended Answers

All 5 Replies

Member Avatar for charisma

I need to know ASAP on how to convert Front Page to Dreamweaver 8. If anyone can help it would be great. I'm having lots of problems with Front Page and want to up dat my website.

Member Avatar for DeViAnT\gAmEr

do you have any html/css coding experience?

Member Avatar for charisma

none really. i know alittle of html

Member Avatar for cohen

You don't need HTML experience really to use Dreamweaver, it is very basic and very good!

As for converting... why don't you just copy the HTML code from Frontpage over to dreamweaver and paste it into the HTML code area, try that and see if that works...

Otherwise in Frontpage save the file as a HTML and then in dreamweaver open the HTML file...

Try that and see what happens...

Enjoy :)

Member Avatar for cohen

Double Post -

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.