Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 version comparison

See how migrating to Office SharePoint Designer 2007 can help you design SharePoint sites and build SharePoint applications tailored for your organization’s needs. Compare the features and benefits of Office SharePoint Designer 2007 with Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003.

• Developing your site

• Building custom applications

• Managing your site

Developing your site

KEY:
= Feature Included = Improved in Office SharePoint Designer 2007  = New in Office SharePoint Designer 2007

Features	FrontPage 2003	Office SharePoint Designer 2007
SharePoint site customization Enjoy deep editing support for the technologies underlying SharePoint products, including ASP.NET 2.0, cascading style sheets (CSS), and Windows Workflow Foundation.
ASP.NET master pages Full support for ASP.NET master pages enables you to centralize changes to your site and help ensure a consistent look and feel across multiple pages.
Cascading style sheets Make format and layout changes to entire SharePoint sites simply by editing the master page and modifying the SharePoint CSS. Office SharePoint Designer 2007 includes a CSS task pane for applying and editing CSS rules, a CSS Style Application Toolbar, and a CSS property grid.
Microsoft IntelliSense IntelliSense technology helps eliminate errors in CSS, XSLT, ASP.NET, XHTML, and JScript. When you’re in code view, IntelliSense completes statements and shows available parameters for the work you’re doing.
Professional-grade design environment Richly interact with a user interface that you can use to open, dock, and undock precisely the combination of task panes you want to help you design your site. Use task panes to identify and manipulate tag properties, CSS properties, and table and cell formats; insert SharePoint and ASP.NET 2.0 controls, and more.
Intuitive design interface Enjoy deep editing support for the technologies underlying SharePoint products, including ASP.NET 2.0, cascading style sheets (CSS), and Windows Workflow Foundation.

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Building custom applications

KEY:
= Feature Included = Improved in Office SharePoint Designer 2007  = New in Office SharePoint Designer 2007

Features	FrontPage 2003	Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Build sophisticated composite applications Build interactive tracking, reporting, and data management applications rapidly using Office SharePoint Designer 2007 “no code” features.
Access and aggregate multiple sources of data Create data views and forms for working with a variety of data sources, including SharePoint lists and document libraries, XML files, SQL databases, Web services, and enterprise systems.
Format your data Present data using XSLT Data Views, Web Parts, Web Part connections, and ASP.NET controls. Use dynamic Data View tools such as calculated fields, conditional formatting, sorting, grouping, and filtering.
Interact with your data Write information back to data sources, including SharePoint lists, SQL databases, and XML files, using custom form support.
Extend and customize prebuilt SharePoint applications Download a range of prebuilt SharePoint applications from the TechNet Web site and then use Office SharePoint Designer 2007 to refine them.
Add business logic to your Workflow Designer Take advantage of the power of Workflow Designer. Set up custom workflow conditions and actions, link them to your SharePoint data, and deploy them with a single click, without installing server code.
Support for interactive ASP.NET pages Office SharePoint Designer 2007 provides the same level of support as Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 for ASP.NET control hosting, property grid editing, insertion from a toolbox palette, and Microsoft IntelliSense technology in Code View.

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Managing your site

KEY:
= Feature Included = Improved in Office SharePoint Designer 2007  = New in Office SharePoint Designer 2007

Features	FrontPage 2003	Office SharePoint Designer 2007
Site backup and restore Save your site, including all of the pages and SharePoint list data, and restore it on another server.
Contributor settings Exercise more control over your site. Use SharePoint permission levels to define the customization actions each user of Office SharePoint Designer 2007 can perform on your Web site.
Reset to Site Definition Undo changes to the home page, master page, or other server-deployed pages in the site definition using the Reset to Site Definition command.
Error checking Check for broken links, unused pages, cascading style sheets usage, and master page usage.
Accessibility checking Use the Accessibility Checker to select the guidelines (including U.S. Rehabilitation Act Section 508 guidelines) that you want to follow on your site. Get a list of suggestions to improve accessibility, and jump back and forth between that list and your site to address the issues.
Browser compatibility checking Target the schemas supported by specific browsers. Simultaneously preview your site in multiple browsers.

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