Simple problem one page html only...

User 2155303 Photo


Guest
4 posts

For 10+ years I have used FrontPage for many websites but problems now with Win7, I am spoiled it is too easy to use WYSWYG. I do not have time to learn the newer stuff. I have never used CSS or any of the other stuff. Just plain HTML has worked for a decade and a I am too old and busy to learn all this new fanged helpful stuff.

My primary problem is I have a weekly newsletter that goes to about 500 folks by e-mail. It is one page in html not a website and is an attachment to e-mail. It is fairly large each week.

Easy to do in FrontPage but has quirks and for the last year trying to find a alternative but been very frustrated. Using Word 2010 the writing (with different color fonts, sizes etc) solves the issues with FP but inserts zillions of lines of coding that seems unneeded. But I love writing the newsletter in Word but if you look at the coding it is a mess. (and FP other than some quirks)

I have tried cc html and visual.

CC html would seem great but it seems you can't edit the wyswyg that nicely shows in bottom window, you can only change in the html view. I really don't want to have to write looking at that mess of coding. I just want to write, cut and paste stuff into my newsletter just like I do in Word or FP.

I tried cc visual but can find no way to copy and paste my newsletter into it. Seems can only open a vm? file not an html file. Tried copying and pasting into a new page window but paste does not work. Tried pasting from the Word, FP both from html and wyswyg. Seems like have to have entire site built vs I am just trying to update one page for newsletter from template.

By Template I take prior newsletter delete the content but keep the standard sections and things included in very newsletter so. It is very easy with FP or Word. But with quirks but 90% great

Have tried many other alternatives and just can not find something as simple as doing pages in Word (with so much access Word code) or FP.(with some issues).
User 38401 Photo


Senior Advisor
10,951 posts

Have you tried using Mailchimp.com? It has a nice visual setup for creating and editing your emails as well as a list manager and it's free for I believe up to 1000 subscribers. It not only allows you to create them visually but you can also take your code and input it into a newletter template and then alter it to send. It's quite a useful and well done site. Check it out if you haven't.

Other than that, HTML editor would be the only tool here that you could use for your newsletters as VSD would output a whole different code setup than an HTML email would consider valid.
User 2155303 Photo


Guest
4 posts

Thanks for mailchimp idea will look at it.

I have used theBat for decades and use a lot of its features with postcast so use own smtp server

It would just be easier to be able to edit html page easier to send as attachment. There are no pictures or fancy graphics, is info people want and not selling anything.

If cc HTML editor would allow editing in the preview part it would be ideal instead of only in the html part - like FrontPage but am surprised no other programs seem to allow this. With FP can edit in code part of WYSIWYG view.
User 38401 Photo


Senior Advisor
10,951 posts

yep, get in line behind the rest of us that have been asking for that feature for quite some time. I'm not holding my holding my breath waiting for it myself lol. Mailchimp has that integration and does all the sending for you including keeping your mailing list updated and allowing people to subscribe & unsubscribe from their links on your emails. Anyways good luck whichever way you end up going with it.
User 2155303 Photo


Guest
4 posts

Amaya allows editing in WYSWYG but has some other quirks like delete doesn't delete you have to backspace over what you want to delete (like one letter if you spell wrong) and some other confusing stuff.

Coffee Cup from brief review is cleaner interface but useless for my purpose sine I am not going to do writing in the coding mode vs so much easier in WYSWHG
User 2155303 Photo


Guest
4 posts

Sea Monkey and Trellian can edit in WYSWYG fairly well but they each have their own quirks.

After spending a huge amount of time trying various programs I have given up and just continuing to use Frontpage which is better than any alternative I can find for my newsletter writing.
User 364143 Photo


Guest
5,410 posts

Upgrade Frontpage to Expression Web 4. It is leaps and bounds ahead of Frontpage. You will be glad you did.
CoffeeCup... Yeah, they are the best!
User 271657 Photo


Ambassador
3,816 posts

I thought Frontpage went the way of the dinosaurs some time ago :lol:
Expression Web looks like a HUGE improvement! One more thought... if you don't want to use an email newsletter program (like Mail Chimp), couldn't you save your letter as a PDF? Easy to attach to emails and it's also possible to insert in a VSD page (search the forum, there's several threads about including PDFs in VSD sites). It's also very easy to create links in VSD to PDF documents.
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