Office Live Beta Puts SOHOs Online
Posted by
Rick Scott
February 22, 2006
There are 13 pre-defined page templates, including, for example, About Us, Company Calendar, FAQ, Press Releases, and Site Map. Each template has some skeleton text filled in that you can replace, and components that are suitable for that type of page. However, you can build any kind of text-and-image page you want.
An Office Live Web page is divided into three sections, called zones, and you can select from a variety of pre-defined zone arrangements. You fill each zone with one or more Web Parts -- think of these as components that make up a Web page, such as text blocks, images, tables, or even a live weather report for a city of your choice.
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Text editing is primitive. Five fonts and seven text sizes are available, and you can apply bold, italic, and underscore, use bullets and numbered lists, and insert links, horizontal lines, tables, or graphics -- but little else. The interface is designed for entering (or pasting) simple text or placing graphics rather than doing any HTML coding, and it’s enough to get those chores done. In fact, by keeping HTML completely inaccessible, it protects less talented or experienced site owners from lousing up their page.
Creating A Business Site
Using Office Live, I created a sample site and, despite the editing limitations, and having to accept default formatting, I was satisfied with the results. I wasn't happy with ceding control to Office Live for default formatting — for example, you can’t control column widths because it’s all automatic — but the program does help ensure your site will be consistent across pages. (In the Office Live Essentials version, you can replace the editor with FrontPage.)
 Click image to enlarge. |
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