I want my page of actual material to go down the middle of the browser screen, with a white background on that, but would like to have a darker background color on the remaining spaces to each side of it. How can I do that with VSD?

In VSD goto the top and click on settings. In that menu click on background fill properties. There you can decide what option you would like.

If you're using VSD7, click on the Page properties icon in the top menu then choose solid color (white) for your page (click center page, also). Now, go to Settings > Background Fill and choose either solid color, gradient or image to set what shows on either side of the page.

Thanks PaintBrush. I missed that other part of the request.

Well, I'm so slow... I started to answer this before you got here, but had to go take a look at my VSD program to make sure what the settings options were

Ah thanks, that did it!

I wonder why it wasn't in the manual?

We used to explain every feature of VSD in the manual but we had so many complaints that it became too complicated to read. We decided to move to a Quick Start Guide instead giving you the basics to get the software to work.

I want a background gradient also but I have 7, but I have 3 choices:
Continue the background fill
Select a Color
Use an Image

Am I missing something?

Sorry, the gradient is a choice for Page Properties. But for the background beyond the page you would need to choose Solid Color, Image or Continue the Page Background Fill. So if your page has a gradient fill, you could choose to continue that on either side. If you would rather have a solid colored page with the gradient showing on either side, choose a color for your page in the Page Properties, then make make your gradient in an image editing program like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Paint.Net... (save it for web as a jpeg or png file), then back in VSD, choose Image in the Background Properties to insert it.

You could also 'Google' for background gradients if you'd rather find one already made.

Thanks! I'm a newbie to Paint Shop Pro but found the instructions and it worked great when saved as png.