This manual cleared up a lot of questions I had about Microsoft's FrontPage 2003. Microsoft should be ashamed that they didn't care enough about their users to include this with the program. I'd recommend this to anyone who is having problems understanding FrontPage.

I am still working on the front page book. I knew nothing when I started. I am now nearly finished covering chapter 4. there are a few places I strugled to understand what the author was talking about but overall the book is serving my purpose. I never expect to be a front page expert but one of these days I do expect to have a running website. I recomend the book although I have not looked at other book on the subject.

Wonderful book. Easy to read. Simple instructions. I followed and built my website just like I had taken a class to learn how. I would recommend this book to anyone that needs a quick way to learn FrontPage 2003.

I've been designing web sites for quite some time now. By no means am I a professional but I can make web sites using basic coding and that's what I had to do until I found FrontPage 2003. FrontPage 2003 greatly reduced the amount of time it took me to create a web site. Although I had been using the program for a while, after I decided to start a business designing web sites I bought several books on FrontPage 2003. I wanted to have the most knowledge about the program as possible and be able to produce the most professional looking web sites for customers. Out of the several books that I purchased all on this one program, I found this book to be the most helpful and overall best book on the topic. It covers everything you need to know from start to finish. It starts out by explaining basic web site design features of the program and then progressively describes more detailed processes as the book continues. All instructions are easy to read and understand. Out of all the books I've purchased, this book has helped me fully understand the program the best. If I had to recommend one book on FrontPage 2003 to a friend, this book would be the one.

Step by step instructions and screen prints. Perfect for beginner. Also purchased FrontPage 2003 the missing manual. An excellent complement.

Instructional manuals lack the one-to-one human connection that make learning more interactive. As complete as this manual strives to be--and it's very good--it can't take the place of individual instruction from a knowledgeable, experienced professional. Case in point are the directions for creating a navigation menu: follow them to a "T" and encounter a surprise when the outcome doesn't match what's listed in the manual.

It takes some savvy to blend one's own personal knowledge and intelligence with that of a great instructional manual. If you're really a beginner, opt for a class first, then use this manual as your constant companion.

I still haven't got the time to read the book. I have used it once or twice as a reference and I could find what I wanted to know.

The readability of this book is outstanding, and it facilitates the understading of what a website is, and the tools with-in Front Page which will help in the creation a basic website. After reading the first few pages of Front Page 2003 I felt confident that I had found the proper manual to assist me in developing, and eventually publishing my website. Unequivically, I highly reccomend this manual as the primary resource for utilizing Front Page 2003.

I got FrontPage 2003(The Missing Manual) it is good from the start to the end, I knew quite a lot already because I used FrontPage for more than a year already but no book to help me in my study, I also use macromedia dreammweaver which is quite good too I use the best of both world building a wesite from both what a cannot do with one I do with the Other one I make use of the FrontPage for dynamic pages for I'm not very good at coding FrontPage does the hard work for you and save you months of hard and tedious coding and headaches.

I love the series The Missing Manual. I never really cared for FrontPage 2003 for some reason so I always created my websites on Dreamweaver. Once Microsoft came out with FrontPage 2003, I decided to give it a shot. I looked around for some books to help me and found that nothing was really that spactacular. Then I came across the Missing Manual Frontpage 2003. I looked up up online and read each review before I went to the bookstore to check it out. I bought the book and I am glad that I did. This is defintaly the best book on the market for Frontpage 2003.

After borrowing from the library several different books on FrontPage 2003 I finally stumbled on this book to help me make sense of the software. It is by far the most thorough and helpful book I have found. Ms Mantaro does an excellent job of explaining the "how to" of most tasks required to build a website with FrontPage 2003.

After borrowing from the library several different books on FrontPage 2003 I finally stumbled on this book to help me make sense of the software. It is by far the most thorough and helpful book I have found. Ms Mantaro does an excellent job of explaining the "how to" of most tasks required to build a website with FrontPage 2003.

This book covered everything very nicely while starting as if you knew nothing, which I didn't. I was able to learn Frontpage quickly and get two websites up and running in a few months. What else do you need to know?

Very simple answer on this book: Very well done. Should have been included with the product when sold. Well worth the purchase price.

Great companion book to the MS FrontPage 2003 software. There isn't much in this book that is not addressed. Great info for a novice like me, but if you are even half-way advanced, I'm not sure there is much this book can help you with.

With the caveat that I am still wading through the early chapters,I bought this book based on the favorable reviews of others here. I haven't been disappointed.

I will say that it is very comphrensive. Most of the publications from O'Reilly seem to be good and usable.

Usable because I have bought some manuals in the past from other publishers that are close to worthless. The cynical side of me wonders if some publishers pay the authors by the word with no regard to content.

After all, how many 300-400 page manuals are out there promising the user to "simplify" the understanding of the application?

This book, while on the large side (normal as manuals go), seems to be full of meat with no useless fluff.


One thing I would like a manual to have - and I do not believe any exist - is to give the reader a **macro** level view of the software then go into the **micro*** levels. Most all start at the micro levels taking you from chapter to chapter.

This book has you from the beginning building a practice website so I suppose one could say that approaches a macro level -

What I would like to see is a chapter devoted to the various sections of the Dreamweaver application - which is huge.

I thought it laughable that while Adobe let me download a 65 MB 30 day trial version with NO documentation (which was nice - don't think I am ungrateful) - I tried some of their on-line tutorials and the few I tried "assumed" one knew all the web jargon.

Back to the book - I think it is one of the best manuals out there on this application - and as the title on all of these "Missing Manual" series allude, it is the manual that should have come with the software.

If I were to write a manual I think I would have a monster index with a "what do you want to do" section - took me 3 days to learn that Dreamweaver doesn't create thumbnails as easily as Frontpage..

Or perhaps - to make this book perfect - include a CD - or offer on the web - a complete website sample with all the features they teach you. As you roll the cursor over these features they tell you (chapter) how do do them. That would make the book perfect.

This book does allow you to go onto the web and download files for the tutorial, which you use to help build your practice web site (which I am doing now).

I'll change my ranking from 4 stars to 5...

I have 4 other books on FrontPage and none are as thorough and easy to learn from as this one. I loaned it out with 2 of the others. The other 2 were rejected in favor of this book, and I haven't gotten it back yet!

very good book and very descriptive I was mainly interested in the dynamic html as I was interested in learning how to make mouseover cascading menus it tells you step by step how to achieve it with no missing steps like many books

I really enjoyed reading this book, describing step by step this software. The particularly helpful parts are the pros and cons described in the book for each and every approach of designing a web site.

I bought this book and FrontPage 2003 Quick Steps. Quick Steps has better pictures and is a better book for the absolute beginner. However the Missing Manual has more depth once you are ready to add bells and whistles to your site. I'd buy them both.

To bad it took an outsider to write a how to manual for Microsoft's FrontPage 2003. This is a real How To manual. I learned more from this manual than Microsoft's own book "FrontPage 2003 Step by Step", which I also own but was a waste of money. Not only does it tell you how to, it also has step by step practice sections. Not only does it tell you why, but how. This is not only a great book for beginners, but the advanced as well. Thanks to Jessica Mantaro we now have a manual that Microsoft should have included.

No kidding. Entirely self-taught, this great grandpa has been wrestling with FP for years, with three websites so far to show for it. My sons and grandson have tutored from afar, but it's been a struggle. Suddenly, I have not only FP 2003, but I also have, for the first time, a simple, straight-forward logical set of instructions to go with it. Life is good. If " .. the Missing Manual" has made Front Page undertandable, even easy, for me, it must be special. I don't know Jessica Mantaro, but I can tell you for sure, she knows FP 2003 and she knows how to teach what she knows.

Just plain good. Well written, well put togeather, and makes it all easy to understand. My only complaint is it should come with a box of stick-its :) I've marked so many pages already.
It delivers on what it promises, and is great if you got Frontpage 2003 (like I did) then wonder just what you are supposed to do next.

I bought the "Absolute Beginers Guide..." first. It wasn't 'absolute' enough for me. The layout of this book was much more logical and comprehensive.

this really is the missing manual. get this and "quick steps" and you will have a mated set that dovetail.

First things first: if you want to get any *real* work done in FP 2003, buy this book. Those of you who have work to do, feel free to ignore the rest of this review.

As someone who has worked for nearly twenty years in high tech (including five for Microsoft, so maybe I should say I worked in high tech for fifteen years and went to meetings and watched my back for another five), I decided recently to purchase FrontPage 2003 and was appalled to find a leaflet enclosed, rather than a manual. What the @!$%*#?!? Now I will be the first to admit that Microsoft has earned an honest reputation for obfuscation, overcomplication and completely redesigning products while ignoring the problems in the ones that have already shipped, but...not putting a manual in the box for this software is downright cruel. Most regular folks do not understand that Microsoft hides the coolest and most useful features from them because a) Great minds within the company assume the customer will hurt themselves when presented with an advanced feature, b) because these are the parts of the product most likely to generate calls to tech support in Bangalore and c) M$ products are actually created by tens of thousands of small, inefficient yet tireless rodents who enjoy nothing more than building a complex series of tunnels, so meaty functionality is almost always counter-intuitively hidden behind a maze of dialogs.

And a special love letter to Bill and/or Ballmer, if you're reading this, wake up and smell the espresso...ordinary people can and DO read manuals, as do world-weary geeks. Front Page is actually, against incredible odds, a good product.

The decision not to include a manual was apparently somebody's 'great idea' of cost-cutting. Bad, bad decision. Shame on you, big billion-dollar company, for shafting the customer once again. This is a move in the wrong direction. Next time you reorg the company, aim for hiring some real talent (rather than cookie-cutter drones), putting the customer first (instead of lip service) and cutting some of the layers of overpaid management fat rather than short-changing the people who paid earnest money for, and are struggling to work with, your software. You're looking more like Enron every day.

THE MISSING MANUAL IS REALLY "THE BOOK THAT SHOUD HAVE BEEN IN THE FP BOX." CONGRATULATION TO JESSICA MANTARO. AN EXCELENT MANUAL. I RECOMMEND, GO AHEAD.
MARCELO, FROM: CURITIBA - BRAZIL.

This is the second manual I have purchased for FrontPage 2003. This book is clear, concise, and easy to follow. I appreciate the clarity for an amateur like me.

Absolutely worth EVERY CENT!... The website lingua in this book is exceptionally UNDERSTANDABLE and no mumbo jumbo! I have already created my business' new home on the web... and already have people asking me to help them do theirs. THE SECRET is in THOSE PAGES.. found in FRONTPAGE 2003 - The Missing Manual! But, hmmmm do I tell them? I could add this service now to MY SERVICES... *smiling* but, seriously, my son has been working with FrontPage, at his school, and put me on the valuable software. But I had to make two options... listen to him dictate to me, or learn the software myself... and master it, MY WAY! Went online, and I know by the GRACE of MY GOD.. I was led, to this book... and YOU'LL be seeing FIRST hand, SOON..., MY CREATIVITY with a QUICK READ BOOK, like FRONTPAGE 2003 - The Missing Manual. Jessica Mantaro - APPLAUSE goes out to you!!! You made my hectic days MUCH easier, by making this web-designing a breeze for me... now I can concentrate on my business and CREATING WHAT I DO BEST... enjoying my business' profits!

I was initially attracted to this book by its title. I have often been frustrated and even angry by the poor quality of manuals that come with so many products. It's then a burden to locate an appropriate, well written manual. Some are too basic; some too advanced. At least for me, this one was written at the right level and with a pleasant style to read. I had first read parts of Frontpage 2003 for Dummies and Microsoft's Step-by-Step book. They were okay, but this book was better. This book seemed to have more substance without a lot more heft. And it's nice to read a computer manual with a critical perspective and a slightly irreverant tone--something that is missing from the Microsoft series. The book wasn't perfect. I had trouble, for example, following its chapters on layers and cascading style sheets. Something seemed to be missing from these chapters. I don't exactly know what except that these chapters didn't fulfill their stated purpose. All in all, though, an excellent book.

FrontPage used to have a reputation for not being for "real website designers". Maybe it still does; reputations are tough to shake. If so, it's undeserved. Let's face it - FrontPage is a complicated program that can produce truly professional-looking websites. I recently upgraded from FrontPage 2000 to 2003 and immediately thought, "Uh oh, I'm gonna need some help in understanding this." And this book provides it.
On-line help is great if you know precisely what you are looking for - just fire up the index and type in a word or two. But if you want to learn how to use a product you are almost always better off buying a good book. (Why is that?)
Anyway, I really like the way this woman writes. She has a knack for presenting numerous and potentially-boring technical details in an informative and conversational way. She points out what's good - and lacking - about the product itself and related web technologies (e.g. HTML, tables, CSS). She takes you on a soups-to-nuts website development journey that not only describes how to get started and incorporate progressively-sophisticated features, but also covers things like structuring, testing, publishing, and working with a database.
All in all, the cover says it best: This book should have been in the box.

FrontPage used to have a reputation for not being for "real website designers". Maybe it still does; reputations are tough to shake. If so, it's undeserved. Let's face it - FrontPage is a complicated program that can produce truly professional-looking websites. I recently upgraded from FrontPage 2000 to 2003 and immediately thought, "Uh oh, I'm gonna need some help in understanding this." And this book provides it.
On-line help is great if you know precisely what you are looking for - just fire up the index and type in a word or two. But if you want to learn how to use a product you are almost always better off buying a good book. (Why is that?)
Anyway, I really like the way this woman writes. She has a knack for presenting numerous and potentially-boring technical details in an informative and conversational way. She points out what's good - and lacking - about the product itself and related web technologies (e.g. HTML, tables, CSS). She takes you on a soups-to-nuts website development journey that not only describes how to get started and incorporate progressively-sophisticated features, but also covers things like structuring, testing, publishing, and working with a database.
All in all, the cover says it best: This book should have been in the box.

The thing I like most about "FrontPage 2003 : The Missing Manual" by Jessica Mantaro is how well this book is laid out. There are many times when a book is not intelligently planned out ahead of time and you are dealt with the obstacle of having to search chapter through chapter to find what you are looking for. Upon opening this book you will immediately find this to not be the case. Separated into 18 chapters with a helpful index at the end, this book covers all the important topics:

01. Creating a basic web site
02. Adding and editing text
03. Working with Hyperlinks
04. Image manipulation and insertion
05. Creating tables
06. Using frames
07. How Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is used
08. Using layers
09. Learning DHTML
10. Learning about site structure
11. Using themes and templates
12. How to test your site
13. Publishing your site for the world to see
14. Collaboration tools available
15. Using forms in your site
16. Working with databases
17. Communicating with a database
18. Integrating FrontPage with other Office apps

Simply stated, this is a fantastic reference manual for anyone that needs to learn FrontPage 2003 or wants to get more out of this application that has made so much progress the last couple of versions. FrontPage used to be a basic, clunky app that wasn't the best tool around, but of all the 2003 Microsoft Office updates, this application is probably the one most worthy of an upgrade. The new version of FP truly shines over the rest and it will be a helpful companion by your side while you are working on your corporate or personal web site.

A fantastic manual for learning and/or reference that truly should have been in the box. Expertly written by an experienced technical writer who brings her years of experience to the table, making it easy for the everyday John/Jane Doe to become a FrontPage 2003 pro!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Solid end-to-end coverage of the features of FrontPage. The chapters are organized in generally the way that you use the program. Starting with basics of creating a page, going through styles, images, uploading, site management, then getting into dynamic sites. Definitely worth it for beginners with FrontPage.