There are a wealth of options for creating web pages, from quick and simple online site builders to powerful tool suites. The easiest tools to use for developing web pages quickly are "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) web page editors. WYSIWYG editors let you design and create web pages without needing to know HTML. See the References and Resources sections for links to some of the tools and sites mentioned in this article.

Online Site Builders

The easiest way to create web pages is to use an online web hosting service that features a WYSIWYG web page builder. Using an online site builder lets you create web pages and publish them without the need to install software on your computer or figure out how to upload files to your site. There are many free hosting services, such as WordPress, Microsoft Office Live, Webs, Google Sites, and weebly.

WYSIWYG Editors

Many free and inexpensive WYSIWYG web page editors are available. These applications are generally easy to learn. They tend to look similar to word processing applications but are specialized for creating web pages. Nvu, PageBreeze and WebDwarf are all popular, free WYSIYG web-authoring tools.

Word Processing Software

Chances are you have word processing software on your computer, such as Microsoft Office Word or OpenOffice. Many word processing applications can save a document as a web page. Using a word processing application to create and edit web pages offers many benefits, such as WYSIWYG editing, converting your existing documents to web pages, and packaging all the pages and graphics into a single folder for easy upload. If you are already comfortable using your word processor to create documents, you can learn to use it to create web pages very quickly.

Microsoft Expression Web

Microsoft Expression Web is a WYSIWYG web page--authoring tool that features an HTML code editor, diagnostics, CSS design, and support for a wide range of web development programming languages. Web and other Expression suite applications are moderately expensive but not excessive for most business users or even many home users. Microsoft offers a free trial of all the Expression tools so you can try it.

Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver is the industry standard application for professional web-page authoring. It is a very powerful application and offers work flow integration with Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and other Adobe products. Dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG editor, so it is easy to learn the basics and get started creating basic web pages. Dreamweaver is relatively expensive, but Adobe offers a free trial so you can try it.

Hand Coding

Hand coding HTML is the most difficult way to create web pages because it requires you to learn HTML and CSS and to type a lot of code that WYSIWYG editors automatically generate for you. You can hand-code HTML using any text editor, such as Microsoft Notepad. Several applications are available that specialize in HTML code authoring, featuring syntax checking, color coding and auto-fill capabilities. Several free editors are available on download.com, such as Notepad++ and Wolf Web Editor. Many of these applications support development languages, such as PHP, Java, and SQL.

Publishing Your Pages

Many of the desktop applications offer a built-in uploading tool. If not, you will need to manually upload your web pages to your web site using an FTP client (e.g., Filezilla) or an SCP client (e.g., WinSCP). Check with your web site administrator for instructions on uploading files to your site.

Source:

OpenOffice

Microsoft Expression

Adobe Dreamweaver