Sometimes HTML editors don't display HTML tags the way you created them, changing lowercase tags to uppercase or changing tags colored blue to red. When this happens, you can lose the look of the HTML page you worked so hard to create.

By default in Microsoft FrontPage, the formatting of the HTML tags in your Web pages is maintained even if FrontPage doesn't understand them. If the page was created in another HTML editor, the content, syntax, and formatting of HTML for that page are not changed, even if the page contains errors or unrecognized HTML tags.

When you save the page, FrontPage saves any custom formatting on the HTML page — such as indentation, the case of tags, and so on — for any new HTML you've written. The original HTML for the page, however, will not be modified or reformatted in any way unless you actually modify that HTML in FrontPage.

Using the new "Preserve existing HTML" option

A new option in FrontPage, Preserve existing HTML, is selected by default. This option is on the Tools menu, in the Page Options dialog box, on the HTML Source tab. It keeps FrontPage from changing existing HTML on a page. Only new HTML inserted using FrontPage, or changes to existing HTML created by FrontPage, will be changed during a save or refresh of the page.

If you want FrontPage to make changes to all HTML on the page when the page is saved or refreshed, select Reformat using the rules below on the HTML Source tab. With this option selected, FrontPage applies the formatting options listed on the tab to all HTML tags on the page.