Styles: how best set Normal, Body etc?

[Barry]

I've read earlier responses, but remain confused... can someone point me to
an explanation of how best to use Styles.
I want to avoid inefficient code, so want to use CSS ... (& I'm used to e.g.
Word's 'Norma'l & 'Body' Styles.)
I can see Normal in the Styles drop-down, but can't see how to change it,
& I can't see Body in the drop-down.

fyi - I want to set normal to Arial, 10Pt & Green,
and Body to 9px spacing between para's

PS - and almost everything is in tables (as I've read that Styles don't
cascade into containers ... & guessed that a tables may be a container?)

 

[Corey Bryant]

Frontpage 2003 does not really support styles as best as it could.
Expression Web does.

you could create your own style sheet of course and then work from that.
You can apply styles to tables / cells, or even better - divides (to help you
layout your website).

http://www.w3schools.com/css/ might be one place to start

 

[Barry]

Your link is excellent & describes styles well - (I'm sure I'll use it for
more than just this - tks.)
I'm [stuck:-] with FP for now, so must learn how to best use style within
it. So my basic questions is still:
Does anyone have any best-practises for FP.

 

[David Berry]

Here's an article on how to use Styles with FrontPage to get you started

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa140116(office.10).aspx

 

[Barry]

Thanks David. An excellent article & I notice that 'Normal' is used in
examples ... and I notice an excellent author ;-)
you obviously know your stuff, so can I ask a direct question.

If (in FP) I open a new site and create text in a new page, by defauft the
style is 'Normal'. In the style drop-down I can see listed 'normal' but
not 'body'.
So I create a new style sheet (to attempt to change normal). In the Style
toolbar, I select style and in the drop-down 'body' is listed, but not Normal.
So it seems to me ... I can modify the body style - but then not be able to
select/use it. or use the Normal style , but not be able to modify it.

There is obviously a way round the above, please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[David Berry]

I'm not sure I totally understand the question. If you change the Body
style (Format, Styles, Body, Modify) then that becomes the "Normal" style
for the page. if you want to see more styles in the drop down then you
would create User-Defined styles which can be modifications to existing
styles (like changing the font that the H1 style uses) or class selectors.
So for example, if you want a style that makes the Font Tahoma, 10px, Bold
you would go to Format, Style and choose User Defined Style. Then click
New. Give it a name with a period in front of it, ex .MyStyle and choose the
style you want. It will appear in Code View like this:

<style>
<!--
..MyStyle { font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold }
-->
</style>


Then when you go back and look in the style drop down you'll see .MyStyle.
Highlight the text and choose that style and it will change the text.

 

[Barry]

You've solved my problem David.
From your reply, I can see that 'Normal' is based on 'Body'; whereas in Word
Body is based on Normal.
That explains a lot of the 'strange' things that happened when I changed Body.