REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 11, 1997 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the immediate worldwide availability of the public beta of Microsoft® FrontPage® 98, the latest version of the world’s best-selling Web site creation and management tool. FrontPage 98 continues to set the standard with new support for intelligent design assistance, expanded site management, and the latest Web technologies. A free copy of the FrontPage 98 beta is now available at http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/ (connect-time charges may apply). Users can also receive the beta on CD-ROM for a nominal shipping and handling charge.
“Our goal with FrontPage has always been to bring the power of Web publishing to the broadest possible set of users,”
said Chris Peters, vice president of the Web authoring unit at Microsoft.
“With FrontPage 98 we will meet the needs of both beginners and advanced users by delivering a comprehensive Web creation and management tool that is easy to use, yet powerful and flexible enough to support the latest Web technologies.”
The FrontPage 98 Web site creation and management tool delivers a greatly expanded set of features to help users build and maintain professional-quality Web sites easily. Users will find new WYSIWYG tables and frames support, and more than 50 professionally designed themes to help them quickly apply a consistent look across their sites. A redesigned FrontPage Explorer includes the new Navigation View, which helps users plan and organize the structure of their sites, and automatically generates Navigation Bars and hyperlinks. FrontPage 98 also supports the latest Web technologies such as Dynamic HTML,
“push”
or channel definition format (CDF), and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Users will also find performance improvements throughout FrontPage 98, including incremental content publishing to and just-in-time information retrieval from the Web.
Ron Bokleman has been a user of FrontPage since version 1.0 shipped in late December 1995.
“With each successive release, the product gets easier to use, yet also more powerful,”
Bokleman said.
“The new Navigation View really does reflect the way I think about site structure – it’s already helped me plan and organize my Web sites more effectively. And the new table drawing tool has saved me lots of time laying out my pages.”
Intelligent Design Assistance
New intelligent design-assistance features eliminate the need for programming knowledge or graphics design expertise. Now anyone can build a great-looking Web site. New features of FrontPage 98 include the following:
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FrontPage Themes. Users can select from over 50 professionally designed Theme layouts, each with its own variable collection of graphics, buttons, banners, colors and bullets that can be quickly applied to a single page or to an entire Web site.
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Enhanced table creation and editing. FrontPage 98 includes a new table drawing tool that makes creating and editing tables as easy as drawing and erasing rows and columns on a piece of paper.
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WYSIWYG frames. Now users can choose to create or modify frames pages from a number of templates or create a custom frames grid directly from within the FrontPage Editor.
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Microsoft Image Composer 1.5. This new version provides an easy way to create and customize sophisticated images for Web sites. Version 1.5 includes the Microsoft GIF Animator, a new button wizard and hundreds of art effects.
Expanded Site Management
FrontPage 98 offers a comprehensive set of site management tools to help users effectively manage the hyperlinks, content and structure of their Web sites. New tools in FrontPage 98 include these:
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Navigation View and Navigation Bars. The FrontPage Explorer Navigation View helps users plan and organize the structure of their site and automatically generates Web pages with related Navigation Bars and hyperlinks. Users can also print a site map from within the Navigation View.
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One-button publishing. FrontPage 98 supports one-button publishing to all popular UNIX and Windows NT® operating system-based Web servers directly from within the FrontPage Explorer toolbar.
Flexible, Open Support for the Latest Web Technologies
FrontPage 98 is the first Web creation and management tool to offer broad support for the newest browser technologies introduced in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and Netscape Navigator 4.0.
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Dynamic HTML. FrontPage 98 automatically generates the source code required to use text animations, form field extensions, dynamic outlining and page transitions.
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The Channel Definition Format Wizard. The CDF Wizard lets users quickly turn their sites into
“channels”
to which visitors can subscribe for automatic content delivery. -
Cascading Style Sheets. FrontPage 98 gives Web authors word processor-like control over the text in their Web pages. Now users can define complex styles for Web elements such as paragraphs, documents and collections of documents.
Availability and Pricing
The beta version of FrontPage 98 is available without charge (connect-time charges may apply) from the Microsoft FrontPage Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/ The beta software expires on Dec. 31, 1997.
As a special service, Microsoft is also offering the FrontPage 98 beta software on a
CD-ROM to interested users in North America. The CD-ROM is available for a shipping and handling fee of $9.38 (U.S.) for orders placed by phone, (800) 664-8437, or via fax, (800)
392-8250. Orders placed via the Web are $6.48 http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/ The total cost of the CD-ROM may vary depending on delivery address and method of shipment. The program does not include technical support or refund and exchange options.
Computer users worldwide can obtain information about Microsoft FrontPage at http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/ and about other Microsoft products at the company’s World Wide Web home page at http://www.microsoft.com/
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader is software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take full advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, FrontPage and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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