Free Add-ins, Templates, and FAQ for Microsoft FrontPage

FrontPage 2003 is the Web site creation and management program with the tools, power, and features to deliver better results. FrontPage 2003 empowers users with advances in three key areas:

Web sites created with FrontPage 2003 can be published to any server—including Microsoft Windows® 2000, Microsoft Windows NT®, and UNIX—even if it doesn’t support Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions. FrontPage 2003 also provides support for publishing to both File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) servers. The optimal combination is to use FrontPage 2003 in combination with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services on Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003. This enables you to access the entire set of new functionality in FrontPage 2003, along with improvements to the way you did things in Microsoft FrontPage version 2002 and FrontPage 98.

Microsoft has continued to make investments in FrontPage 2003 to enhance the overall customer experience, based on customer feedback and the changing role of server extensions in our overall product offerings. As we examined our options, it became clear that the best solution was to create a new and radically more powerful server story—Windows SharePoint™ Services—and eliminate the need for server extensions beginning with FrontPage 2003. Today, the optimal combination for FrontPage is to use FrontPage 2003 in combination with Windows SharePoint Services. This allows you to access the entire set of new functionality in FrontPage 2003, along with improvement to the way you did things in FrontPage 2002 and other previous versions of FrontPage. For more information about these changes, see FrontPage server configuration options and features.

While we are eliminating investment in the development of future server extension versions, we will continue to support existing server extensions on the Windows and UNIX/Apache server platforms. We will also update the FrontPage 2002 server extensions to support Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS 6.0), but will not add any additional Web site authoring functionality.

Windows SharePoint Services is the engine for creating Web sites that enables information sharing and document collaboration, increasing individual and team productivity. It is a key piece of the information worker infrastructure delivered in Windows Server 2003. It also provides additional team services and sites to Office and other desktop applications, as well as serving as a platform for application development.

SharePoint sites take file storage to a new level, from saving files to sharing information, and helping team members to work together on documents, tasks, contacts, events, and other information. SharePoint sites also enable team and site managers to easily manage site content and activity. In addition, the environment is designed for easy and flexible deployment, administration, and application development. Learn more about Windows SharePoint Services.

All of the live data-driven Web site features in FrontPage 2003 require Windows SharePoint Services. Some of these features include data-driven Web sites, XML support, the Data Source Catalog, Web package templates, and Web Parts.

XML is a condensed form of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) that enables developers to create customized tags that offer flexibility in organizing and presenting information. XML makes it easier to transition content from internal systems onto the Web using FrontPage. FrontPage lets you define how XML documents that follow any customer-defined schema will be formatted on a Web page by authoring Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLTs) directly within the FrontPage editor.

Enabled by Windows SharePoint Services, FrontPage 2003 easily allows you to modify and present live data from sources such as Windows SharePoint Services data, XML, Web services or OLE Database (OLEDB) data sources to create sophisticated data-driven Web sites that both lower your maintenance costs and allow users to post to the Web using just a browser.

FrontPage also supports a complete set of WYSIWYG (“what you see it what you get”) tools for creating and modifying XSLT Data Views on a variety of data sources including XML files, databases, and XML SOAP services. These Data Views include industry-standard reporting tools for sorting, grouping, filtering, and conditionally formatting data. Users can create high quality, dynamic Web pages for presenting live data using these tools.

Sites created with FrontPage 2003 can be viewed in any browser. In fact, FrontPage 2003 allows you to target specific browser or screen resolutions, or see how your site will look in various combinations of browsers and resolutions—including simultaneous previewing of multiple browsers.

See FrontPage 2003 system requirements.

Find FrontPage 2003 pricing and licensing information.

It will be licensed as a stand-alone product. Find FrontPage 2003 pricing and licensing information.

Yes. Find more information about getting the FrontPage 2003 trial software.

No. FrontPage 2003 is available as a stand-alone program only. Learn more about what programs are available in Office 2003 Editions.

Yes. You can use previous versions of FrontPage to modify Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pages created in FrontPage 2003. However, you cannot modify content created with new features, such as .aspx pages (created in Microsoft ASP.NET) that include the Data View Web Part or Dynamic Web Templates.

Yes. You can use FrontPage 2003 to open, modify, and enhance Web pages created in previous versions of FrontPage.