One thing Microsoft does right is to provide good introductory books for its software. The Step by Step series remains a good way for a beginner to learn a Microsoft program, and Frontpage 98 Step by Step demonstrates that.

The book is aimed at beginners in Web page design, and thus opens with a discussion of the World Wide Web, Web pages, and other basic information. This is followed by two lessons that cover creating and modifying Web pages and adding hyperlinks. The enclosed CD provides practice files to work with, and the instructions are clear and simple.

The next section covers most of the features in Frontpage: themes, tables, lists, adding multimedia (sound and image files), forms and frames and even creating an intranet. The text discusses why you might use any of these tools, and offers design suggestions for making pages more readable and useful. The intranet discussion includes techniques for verifying hyperlinks, adding hit counters, restricting access and using a guest book.

The final section covers maintaining, testing and publishing a Web site.

The book's illustrations are plentiful and helpful. The text is thorough and well-paced. A novice Web page creator can learn enough from this book to produce impressive Web pages with Frontpage 98.

Frontpage 98 Step by Step
By Catapult, Inc.
[$29.99, 306 pages with CD-ROM]
Microsoft Press, 1997
ISBN: 1-57231-636-5

In sharp contrast to Microsoft's Step by Step guide, this is a disappointing volume in a series that is usually much better.

The first chapter discusses new features in the 2000 version of Frontpage: a pointless chapter if you're a beginner to the program. Sections on customizing toolbars and using the navigation bars come in the basics chapter, long before a beginner would be able to use the information.

In fact, you would have to know quite a bit about HTML already to use this book effectively. There is little coverage of such basics as headings, paragraphs or line breaks. You'll find out how to apply them, but the descriptions of what they are or why you would use them are much further along in the book. If you don't already know the names of the features you want, you will have a difficult time figuring out how to make the page you want.

Frontpage 2000 for Windows covers most of the same material as Microsoft's Step by Step guide, but far less effectively. The material does not advance logically from basic material to more difficult, nor from simple to complicated. Instead, the approach is scattershot and disorganized.

You could use this volume productively as a reference, looking up material as you need it, but one of the other books in this review would serve better.

Frontpage 2000 for Windows: Visual Quickstart Guide
By Nolan Hester
[$17.99, 376 pages]
Peachpit Press, 1999
ISBN: 0-201-35457-8

Although the publisher rates this highly useful text as an "intermediate-advanced" book, you don't need a lot of HTML knowledge to benefit from it. This is a lucid, well-written guide that covers a lot of ground with clarity and common sense.

The first two chapters cover the basics of Frontpage 2000, along with new features that simplify previously difficult tasks. The coverage of this material is far superior to that in the Visual Quickstart Guide, reviewed above. Multimedia, tables and frames are covered in the next few chapters.

Next the authors cover the "power tools," like hit counters, Dynamic HTML, themes, style sheets, animated GIF files and more. The section on forms goes into detail about processing form output, writing custom scripts, and validating input.

One section deals with integrating Microsoft Office and Frontpage, while another discusses programming solutions using JavaScript, VBScript, JAVA, and other tools. A particularly useful section tells how to connect databases to your Web pages and use ActiveX objects, ADO, SQL and Active Server Pages.

The remainder of the book covers configuration of Frontpage 2000, server extensions, publishing Web sites, remote server administration, etc. Appendixes cover installing and troubleshooting Frontpage 2000. The CD-ROM includes evaluation copies of third-party software.

Stanek and the other authors are unusually clear in their treatment of complex subjects, and cover much more than I realized was contained in the program. This one is well worth the money. If you need a comprehensive guide to Frontpage 2000, this is the best I've seen.