Add a User Forum to my Publisher 2003 web page

[Tomander]

Does Publisher 2003 offer the feature to add a User Forum to my web page
created in Publisher or is this a third party add in.

I have seen the forum I want at many sites. For example:
http://www.paceship.org/forum/default.asp

I want to be able to have users going to different sections similar to
posting and asking question the set-up used here at Mircosoft. Again, I may
need to get an add on or perhaps even a third party software application. I
would prefer something "free" because the site is used for a charity
organization and we do not have a lot of funds for web design.

I am also open to suggestion on USER FRIENDLY Publisher 2003 How To books if
anyone has any suggestions or if anyone can suggest an inexpensive web design
program with the features I need user login/password and user forum info I
would really appreciate your feedback. I read that the old version of
FrontPage 2003 would meet most of my needs but it's not longer available.
Microsoft web design software that replaced FrontPage is now called
SharePoint Designer 2007 BUT it is very expense $300.00 and it not in our
budget.

Again, thanks for any help anyone can offer.

Tom, Toronto

 

[DavidF]

Try http://wordpress.com/ for a popular and free blog program. Also check
your own webhost for what they offer. Usually they will have something. Once
again, you would build the blog outside of Publisher, put it in its own
folder on your host and link to it from your main Publisher website just as
you would a password protected page or section.

Web Expression is the program that most FrontPage users have moved to...not
Sharepoint. It has a pretty high learning curve.

The Publisher 2003 Help section is pretty good as compared to the Pub 2007.
There is some good content at Microsoft:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/CH062559071033.aspx . David
Bartosik developed some good content while he as a MVP:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/ .

Before you invest a lot of time in building your site with Publisher, you
should spend some time identifying the goals and scope of what you are
trying to build. Publisher is a DTP that makes it fairly easy to produce
relatively simple, small and static websites, but if you are looking for a
lot of dynamic functionality or plan a large site, you may find Publisher
too limited.

Reference: Using Publisher for web sites :
http://msmvps.com/blogs/dbartosik/articles/80566.aspx

Reference: Plan your Web site:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA100742431033.aspx?pid=CH100793371033

Reference: Prepare, publish, and maintain your Publisher Web site:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA100947601033.aspx

Don't get me wrong, you can build a good looking, functional and cross
browser compatible site with Publisher, but you should be clear about what
you goals are before you choose to use Publisher or a program such as
FrontPage, Web Expression, Dreamweaver or some other web editor which is
specifically designed for web building.

I would also suggest you go to the web group and read through the posts
there to get a better idea of what you can and cannot do with Publisher:
microsoft.public.publisher.webdesign . And if you have any follow up
questions you can post there and we will try to help you. Always include the
version of Publisher, a link to your site and as many specifics as possible.

DavidF