September/October 2016
Introduction to publishing tools
In this page I will explain what tools that you may already have, or you can download for free or subscribe for a low cost that will enable you to create website and then publish them.
Product’s components & descriptions
|
Microsoft Office 2016 Suite for desktop |
General info 
Basically you need 2 tools:
1. A word processor that is capable to convert what you write to HTML pages, which is the only format that is used by the internet browsers
2. A transfer program to transfer what you created with the word processor to your website at the sever computer of the ISP
If you do not understand something then please contact me and I will try first to help you, second to improve the text to be more understandable.
A website is a collection of pages that are placed on one single computer or several computers that are connected to a so called web server such as Microsoft IIS-Internet Information Server, Apache that runs on Linux and many others.
A web server is a computer with special software that is connected to the internet and manages at least one website or many websites and allows users over the internet to access the web pages. In other words, a user may be looking for a specific website such as google.com, and the webserver would then establish connection with that user, and each time the user requests a page, such as about, contact or next page or previous page and the server will respond with the appropriate page. And that is the reason why this computer is called “Web Server”, because it services the user over the www also called world wide web.
To make a website, professionals usually use a specific software program to create the website, which it could be created in various format and languages but at the end it is all going to be converted to HTML-Hyper Text Markup Language. Some use directly HTML to create a website and exactly that is what we are going to do, whereby you do not have to learn HTML. Consider HTML to be a language, it started out in the 1980s with version 1 to be literally as a markup language or an interpreted of what it receives and then convert what it receives over the internet to a displayable language that your internet browser can display. And now HTML is much more sophisticated and has much more capabilities such as handling video, audio, all kind of images, animation and even interactive programs such as filling out a form or working on your bank account over the internet.
There are many programs that would use a so called WYSIWYG-What You See Is What You Get. WYSIWYG is an expression made up in the 1980s when there was a text operating system such as MS-DOS, PC-DOS and CP/M, which means that you as the user can create whatever you want on the monitor and the program will put it out on the display it or print it in exactly the same way. And here it is the same thing, there are many programs around that are word processor like such as Microsoft word that will convert what you create in the word processor into HTML and save it in an HTML file ending with the words xxxxx.html or xxxxx.htm. and that is what we are going to be using, therefore you do not need to learn the html language.
The programs that I will be introducing to you are word processors or word processor like or even professional tools such as Visual Studio, they all have at least one thing in common, which is it allows you to use them as you use a word processor and then they convert what you create to a WYSIWYG in HTML. Some of these programs are free others need a low cost investment and others even very high investment. Some have a limited feature because they are free, but they will do the job because they were made for the general public such as Visual Studio Community Edition, which is a very powerful tool.
The reason I am introducing to you several programs is because I do not know the level of computer knowledge you have, but also I do not know what operating system you have and what environment you have, also I do not know if you can afford a program such as Microsoft office or are you tight on money at the moment, also I don’t know your preference for the user interface usage, therefore I am introducing several programs that in end effect they will have the same result, which is you create a page as you usually create a letter and the program has a function to convert what you wrote into HTML and then we take this HTML file and place it on a webserver, and then you are done and have a page or several pages, or a whole website on the internet.
My preference of all the mentioned programs is the combination of a word processor and a professional development platform that allows you to embed a word processing document within html files and an example of this combination of programs is Microsoft Word and Visual Studio, whereby you can replace Microsoft word with any of the other word processors mentioned below, and in this case if you don’t use Microsoft Word but rather you use another free alternatives, then it will not cost you anything to create an html file except your time.
Product’s components &
descriptions
And these are the programs or tools that we will be using to create website (note: Beside HTML all of the programs can create ODF-Open Document Format, which widely used by most of the word processors including Microsoft Word, some of them have it is own native word processor file formats, such as Microsoft has “.doc” or “.docx”) the programs that we will be using are marked with the text “creates also HTML” and it is highlighted with yellow:
1. Microsoft Office 365. Price, 2 versions: monthly subscription 7 Euro (for one user: 1 PC + 1 tablet + 1 mobile telephone) or 10 Euro (for five users: 5 PCs + 5 tablets + 5 telephones). Exist in many languages
Many of the programs mentioned below can also create a PDF document, and PDF document is also visible over the internet, if the user has PDF reader. Office 365 is from the company Microsoft developed in 2011 and is based on Microsoft Office that was developed in 1989 with lots of features and very stable
1.1. Office 365 Editions & pricing:
1.1.1. For home, several editions, starts at 5.75 to 10 Euro per month
1.1.2. For business several editions start at 4.20 to 34.40 Euro per month
1.1.3. For Educations, pricing start at free to high discount
1.1.4. And for charity, pricing start at free to high discount
1.1.5. There are also editions for Apple IOS but with limited features
1.1.6. Some apps are also available for android but with even much more limited features
1.2. Office 365 products and services
1.2.1. MS Word (word processor), creates also HTML
1.2.2. MS Excel (spread sheets and calculations), creates also HTML
1.2.3. MS OneNote (can read, organize and store various formats)
1.2.4. MS Outlook (email, task, calendar, contact and notes management)
1.2.5. MS Access (database)
1.2.6. MS PowerPoint (presentation)
1.2.7. MS Publisher (contacts book), creates also HTML
1.2.8. Optional product MS Project (Project management)
1.2.9. Optional product MS Visio (diagrams and flowcharts)
1.2.10. One Drive (1TB Online Cloud storage)
1.2.11. Skype 60 minutes, online telephony, monthly for each licensed user
1.2.12. Free updates
1.2.13. Free upgrades to new versions of the same edition
1.2.14. Free technical support 24/7 via telephone or chat
1.2.15. Microsoft Office Online
For more information, please visit the website of Microsoft Office 365 for all editions at: https://products.office.com/en-us/products
2.
Microsoft Office 2016 Suite for desktop,
there are mainly 3 editions, Price: onetime fee and depending on the edition
price range between 149 to 539 Euro suggested retail and on the internet with
price range 57 to 99 Euro (Digital license only), and both includes. Exist in many languages, From the company Microsoft
developed in 1989
2.1. Editions:
2.1.1. Office Home & Student 2016, with the following content: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote
2.1.2. Office Home & Business 2016, with the following content: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook
2.1.3. Office Professional 2016, with the following content: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access, Publisher
2.1.4. Optional product purchased separately: Project (starting at 200 Euro) and Visio (starting at 118 Euro)
2.2. Microsoft Office Content:
2.2.1. MS Word (word processor), creates also HTML
2.2.2. MS Excel (spread sheets and calculations), creates also HTML
2.2.3. MS OneNote (can read, organize and store various formats)
2.2.4. MS Outlook (email, task, calendar, contact and notes management)
2.2.5. MS Access (database)
2.2.6. MS PowerPoint (presentation)
2.2.7. MS Publisher (contacts book), creates also HTML
2.3. Other Microsoft Office optional products
2.3.1. Optional product MS Project (Project management)
2.3.2. Optional product MS Visio (diagrams and flowcharts)
2.3.3. Skype for Business (telephone, teleconferencing and documents collaborations
2.3.4. SharePoint Business collaborations
2.3.5. OneDrive for Business, cloud storage and sharing
2.3.6. Exchange enterprise emailing
For more information, please visit the website of Office Home & Student 2016 at: https://products.office.com/en-us/home-and-student
For more information, please visit the website of Office Home & Business 2016 at: https://products.office.com/en-us/home-and-business
For more information, please visit the website of Office Professional 2016 at: https://products.office.com/en-us/professional
For more information, please visit the website of Microsoft Project at: https://products.office.com/en-us/project/project-and-portfolio-management-software
For more information, please visit the website of Microsoft Visio at: https://products.office.com/en-us/visio/flowchart-software
For more information, please visit the website of Microsoft Skype for Business at: https://products.office.com/en-us/skype-for-business/online-meetings
For more information, please visit the website of Microsoft SharePoint at: https://products.office.com/en-us/sharepoint/collaboration
For more information, please visit the website of Microsoft OneDrive for Business at: https://products.office.com/en-us/onedrive-for-business/online-cloud-storage
For more information, please visit the website of Microsoft Exchange at: https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/email
3.
Microsoft Office Online (Price: Free,
,
very limited features in comparison to the above t versions, no HTML support at
the moment)
3.1. MS Word Online, word processor
3.2. MS Excel Online, spreadsheets
3.3. MS PowerPoint Online, presentation
3.4. MS OneNote Online, multi format document organizer and editor
3.5. MS Outlook Online, emailing
3.6. MS People online, contact
3.7. MS Calendar online, calendar
3.8. MS OneDrive online 5GB, cloud storage
3.9. MS Sway online, website presentation, combines text and media for presentation
3.10. MS Docs online, allows to create online pages to share with others
For more information, please visit the website of Microsoft Office Online at: https://products.office.com/en-us/office-online/documents-spreadsheets-presentations-office-online
Note: Microsoft Office Online a free product(s) that is accessible to all those who have Microsoft email, such as hotmail.com, live.com or outlook.com. To see it live sign in or sign up at www.outlook.com and in the upper left corner, on small devices or small windows it is black in upper right corner, of the email box click on the 9 small boxes as shown in Image 3-2 then you wil have access to all apps as shown in Image-3-3, then you can try each one of them.
ImaImage-3-2
Image-3-3
4.
Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition,
Price: Free, from
Microsoft and was developed for the programmers and later also for web
developments. Today it allows to develop programs for computers as well as apps
for tablets and telephones and website based om Linux and compatible, Microsoft
ASP-Active Server Pageages, PHP, HTML and others, in short it is slowly becoming
a universal development platform, which we will use to create HTML website
4.1. Various development platforms as follow:
4.1.1. Developments for Windows Desktop
4.1.2. Developments for Internet such as .Net Frame Work and Active Server Pages
4.1.3. Developments for Microsoft Azure
4.1.4. Development for various Microsoft Mobiles from 65, to Windows 10
4.1.5. Development for Microsoft Tables Android and IOS
4.1.6. Development for Android mobiles and tablets
4.1.7. Development for Apple IOS mobiles and tablets
4.1.8. Developments for games
4.1.9. Developments for robotics
4.1.10. Developments for
4.2. Developments using among others the following tools and languages
4.2.1. HTML, creates also HTML
4.2.2. JavaScript
4.2.3. PHP
4.2.4. C++, programming language
4.2.5. C#, programming language
4.2.6. F#, programming language
4.2.7. Visual Basic, programming language
4.2.8. Visual C, programming language
4.2.9. PHP Programming in VS Code
4.2.10. Java
4.2.11. R development
4.2.12. Node.js development
4.2.13. Python for cross-platform scripting, web services, IoT, and data science tasks
4.2.14. Many extensions
4.2.15. Several databases
4.2.16. and others such as Java, JavaScript, Jason, Windows from 95 to Windows 10
For more information, please visit the website of Visual Studio at: https://www.visualstudio.com
5.
Apache OpenOffice. Price: Free, exist in many languages, f, from the company Apache
Software Foundation which is an American non-profit corporation since 1999
OpenOffice.org was originally developed by the German company Star Division which was acquired in 1999 by SMS-Sun Micro Systems, and SMS was acquired by Oracle in 2010. It is an Open Source software, meaning that anyone can obtain the source code and modify it as needed. In 2011 Oracle has donated the OpenOffice.org to Apache and Apache has renamed it to Apache OpenOffice.org and since then has updated and improved it several times.
5.1. Writer (similar to Microsoft Word), word processor you can use for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book, creates also HTML
5.2. Calc (similar to Microsoft Excel), a powerful spreadsheet with all the tools you need to calculate, analyze, and present your data in numerical reports or sizzling graphics, creates also HTML
5.3. Impress (similar to Microsoft PowerPoint), the fastest, most powerful way to create effective multimedia presentations, creates also HTML
5.4. Draw (Paint + Visio), lets you produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations, creates also HTML
5.5. Base, (Similar to Microsoft Access), lets you manipulate databases seamlessly. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, all from within Apache OpenOffice
5.6. Math, lets you create mathematical equations with a graphic user interface or by directly typing your formulas into the equation editor
For more information, please visit the website of Apache OpenOffice at: https://www.openoffice.org
6.
Calligra Suite. Price: Free,
,
from the company KDE which is an international free software community since
1996
6.1. Words, is a word processor with the ability to import Microsoft Word documents. Creates also limited HTML
6.2. Calligra Sheets, is a spreadsheet program, formerly known as KSpread and Calligra Tables.
6.3. Calligra Stage, is a presentation program, formerly known as KPresenter.
6.4. Calligra Kexi, is a visual database management front-end, similar to Microsoft Access and with limited compatibility to Access' file format. A Report Designer to replace Kugar is included.
6.5. Calligra Plan, is a project management application that can create Gantt charts. Formerly known as KPlato.
6.6. Calligra Brain dump, is a notetaking and mindmapping application newly introduced with Calligra Suite 2.4.
6.7. Calligra Flow, is a programmable flowchart drawing program with dynamically loadable stencils. Formerly known as Kivio.
6.8. Calligra Karbon, is a vector graphics editor, formerly known as Karbon14.
6.9. Calligra Krita, is a digital painting program with some image editing features. Formerly known as Krayon and KImageshop.
6.10. Calligra Author, is an e-book authoring application like iBooks Author with EPUB export, newly introduced with Calligra Suite 2.6.
For more information, please visit the website of Calligra at: https://www.calligra.org
7.
LibreOffice, Price: Free,
,
is also based on OpenOffice.org, but they claim to be much more advanced, from
the company The Document Foundation from 2010, which was founded by several
developers that were members of the original OpenOffice.org under Sun
Microsystems
7.1. Writer, a word processor with similar functionality and file support to Microsoft Word or WordPerfect. It has extensive WYSIWYG word processing capabilities, but can also be used as a basic text editor. Creates also HTML
7.2. Calc, a spreadsheet program, similar to Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3. It has a number of unique features, including a system which automatically defines series of graphs, based on information available to the user.
7.3. Impress, a presentation program resembling Microsoft PowerPoint. Presentations can be exported as SWF files, allowing them to be viewed on any computer with Adobe Flash Player installed.
7.4. Draw, a vector graphics editor and diagramming tool similar to Microsoft Visio and comparable in features to early versions of CorelDRAW. It provides connectors between shapes, which are available in a range of line styles and facilitate building drawings such as flowcharts. It also includes features similar to desktop publishing software such as Scribus and Microsoft Publisher. It is also able to act as a PDF-file editor.
7.5. Math, an application designed for creating and editing mathematical formulae. The application uses a variant of XML for creating formulas, as defined in the OpenDocument specification. These formulas can be incorporated into other documents in the LibreOffice suite, such as those created by Writer or Calc, by embedding the formulas into the document.
7.6. Base, a database management program, similar to Microsoft Access. LibreOffice Base allows the creation and management of databases, preparation of forms and reports that provide end users easy access to data. Like Access, it can be used to create small embedded databases that are stored with the document files (using Java-based HSQLDB as its storage engine), and for more demanding tasks it can also be used as a front-end for various database systems, including Access databases (JET), ODBC/JDBC data sources, and MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL or Microsoft Access. Work is ongoing to transition the embedded storage engine from HSQLDB to the C++ based Firebird SQL backend. Firebird has been included in LibreOffice as an experimental option since LibreOffice 4.2.
For more information, please visit the website of LibreOffice at: https://www.libreoffice.org
8.
Google Docs, Price: Free,
,
is from the company Google and it is an online system, meaning you do not need to
install the programs on your computer, you just use them through your browser
such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer Mozilla FireFox or others.
It saves to Google Drive and you can also download the files to your computer.
Google Docs was introduced in 2006
8.1. Docs, word processing. Creates also HTML
8.2. Sheets, spread sheets
8.3. Slides, presentation program
8.4. Google Forms, survey software
8.5. Google Drawings, diagramming software
8.6. Google Fusion Table, database manager
For more information, please visit the website of Google Docs at: https://gsuite.google.com
9.
Zoho Docs, Price: Free, i, is from the company Zoho Corporation
which is an international company originated from India and headquartered in
Californian, USA. Zoho Docs were launched in 2005
9.1. Documents, online word processing, Creates also HTML
9.2. Spreadsheets, Online Spreadsheets
9.3. Presentations, Online Presentation
9.4. Databases, Online Presentation
9.5. Note-taking,
9.6. Wikis,
9.7. Web conferencing,
9.8. Customer relationship management (CRM),
9.9. Project management
For more information, please visit the website of Zoho Docs at: https://www.zoho.com/docs
The last 2 products, #8 Google Docs and #9 Zoho Docs, are very similar and both of them are a free online service that you can use and therewith you do not have to download and install a program, Microsoft has also an online version of Microsoft Office including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and others, but and very unfortunately and at this moment the components of this online versions of Microsoft Office it does not produce an HTML documents. Also when using online programs such as Google Docs, Zoho Docs or Microsoft Office Online then you can automatically save your documents to their native cloud storage, which is OneDrive by Microsoft, Google Drive by Google Docs and also Zoho Docs.