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Depending on what you want to accomplish, you can use either Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 or Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to create your Web site — or you can use both! Sites that you create with Windows SharePoint Services are fully customizable with FrontPage 2003 — from the fonts and formatting to the text, graphics, and navigational structure of the site.

There are three key differences between Windows SharePoint Services and FrontPage:

• Windows SharePoint Services provides a Web site structure that you can customize for your needs. You can start using it right out of the box, without having to create a site from scratch. With FrontPage, you create a professional-looking Web site from scratch by using all the wonderful advanced features.
• Use Windows SharePoint Services when you want to collaborate with colleagues on common projects and documents. When you want to create a more traditional Web site by using a product that provides more technically advanced functionality, use FrontPage. FrontPage can support some limited collaboration as well.
• Windows SharePoint Services is always live — and any changes you make are visible immediately to site visitors. With FrontPage, you build a site and publish it to a localhost (localhost: The name that is used to represent the same computer on which a TCP/IP message originates. If you access a server-based Web site by using http://localhost, the request does not actually go out to the Internet.) or remote server that supports FrontPage Server Extensions from Microsoft or Windows SharePoint Services before site visitors can view it.

When to use Windows SharePoint Services

A Windows SharePoint Services site is a great tool when collaborating on documents and projects is a priority for you and your work group. The default functionality enables almost anyone to easily post content to the site, making it easy for this type of Web site to serve the needs of work groups of any size. For instance, people can create surveys and add items to lists of links, libraries of documents, and calendars of events.

With Windows SharePoint Services, updates and additions to the site are immediate. The site is always live, reflecting any changes as you make them. With FrontPage, after you make changes to your site, you must publish it to a localhost (localhost: The name that is used to represent the same computer on which a TCP/IP message originates. If you access a server-based Web site by using http://localhost, the request does not actually go out to the Internet.) or server before site visitors can view the changes.

From a site design perspective, the beauty of Windows SharePoint Services is the ease with which you can create simple, effective, and professional-looking Web sites. The home page and the site-building tools that come with Windows SharePoint Services provide a clean and clear interface that enables people to add content, additional pages, pictures, task lists, and contact information with little effort.

Consider using Windows SharePoint Services alone when you want a structure that is already in place so that you can begin collaborating and sharing documents right away, and when you don't require extensive changes to the look and feel of your Web site.

Find links to more information about Windows SharePoint Services in the See Also box, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

When to use FrontPage 2003

Use FrontPage when you want to create a professional Web site from scratch by using the cutting edge features that FrontPage provides. Such features include Dynamic Web Templates, layout tables and cells, interactive buttons, behaviors, layers, support for Macromedia Flash, and more.

You can add the ability for site visitors to submit content, have online discussions, and search for discussion content. Unlike Windows SharePoint Services, with FrontPage the submitted content isn't live until the site is updated (republished) by the administrator.

FrontPage 2003 enables site administrators to create sections on their Web pages that can be updated by designated individuals, but the overall functionality of a FrontPage Web site is more like a traditional, public-facing Web site.

FrontPage offers some Web site templates that you can adapt for your use. Compared with Windows SharePoint Services, however, more effort is required to add a customized structure and populate it with content. On the other hand, with FrontPage you can create, design, and manage complex, data-driven Web sites, so the FrontPage design tools and options are more robust.

Finally, if you are not connected to a server running Windows SharePoint Services, you cannot create a Windows SharePoint Services Web site. Therefore, if you want a tool that enables some limited collaboration but you aren't connected to Windows SharePoint Services, use the discussions feature and Dynamic Web Templates in FrontPage 2003.

Find links to more information about FrontPage 2003 in the See Also box, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

When to use FrontPage 2003 to customize Windows SharePoint Services

FrontPage 2003 provides a friendly and convenient environment where you can edit your Windows SharePoint Services site. You can take advantage of the advanced features in FrontPage 2003 that make designing, coding, and extending Web sites or Web pages more flexible and more powerful than ever before.

By using FrontPage 2003, you can customize your Windows SharePoint Services site in may ways, including some of the most common, listed below:

• Adding and formatting text
• Adding or changing images, pictures, and graphics
• Adding pages
• Using page templates
• Changing fields displayed in lists
• Changing list styles
• Filtering lists
• Changing sort order of lists
• Grouping list content to make collapsible lists
• Removing title bars
• Changing menu options

Find links to more information about using FrontPage 2003 to customize Windows SharePoint Services in the See Also box, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.