How to Create a Website Using Microsoft Word / Office
by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com
I was recently asked by one of my visitors whether it was possible to use Microsoft Word (or Microsoft Office) to createa website. This article answers that question and also provides some practical information on how to create basic web pageswith Word/Office.
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Can You Use a Wordprocessor to Create a Web Page?
The answer to that question is basically the same as what you get when you ask 'is it possible to use a pair of pliers to remove a screw?'.
That is to say, of course you can, but it's not really the best tool for the job. Just as a screwdriver can remove the screw more efficiently and easily,likewise a specialized program like a web editor can makethe creation of your website much easier than using a wordprocessor. In fact, there are things that you may want to do with your website thatis not easily accomplished, and perhaps not even possible to achieve, using Microsoft Word or any of thefree wordprocessors.
Different Mediums
Wordprocessors are primarily meant for creating documents that will ultimately be printed out. As such, their features are optimized for thatpurpose. They have the ability to set the margin on your pages in inches or centimetres ('centimeters' inUS English),the ability to set your page to either the A4 size or some other standard paper size, and so on.
Web pages are a completely different medium. They exist to be read on the screen and not on paper. Inches and centimetres are not really usefulfor use on a monitor; here, pixels reign. There is also no universal fixed monitor size, and even if there were, users can freely resize their browserwindows to whatever sizes they want. More importantly, websites have interactive features, such as menu buttons that change colour when themouse hovers over it, or forms that can be submitted, layout and content that can change when certain actions are taken, etc.
If you were to design your web page using a wordprocessor, you will be unnecessarily restricting yourself to the subset of features thatprinted pages have in common with web pages.
But it's not impossible. If you're adamant about using Word to create a web page, carry on reading the rest of this article. On the otherhand, if you don't mind using a web editor, the following articles will give you a head start. Information about how to get the relevantweb editors can be found in those articles.
Ms Word Web Page
How to Start/Create Your Own Website— this is a must-read if you're starting out on a website.
How to Design a Website with Microsoft Expression Web— for people who want to use the free Microsoft Expression Web editor.
How to Design a Website with Dreamweaver— for people who want to use the Dreamweaver editor.
BlueGriffon Tutorial: How to Design a Website with BlueGriffon— for those who want to use the open source BlueGriffon editor.
What You Can Do with a WordProcessor
Microsoft Word has rudimentary facilities to make it slightly easier for you to put an existing document onto your website.
It can convert your document into a web page so that it can be displayed like a normal web page in a browser.
You can create links that point to other websites or other pages on your own website. This can be done either automaticallyby Word when you type a web address (like 'http://www.example.com/') or manually.
My guess is that the facilities are primarily meant for people with existing documents which they want to place on the Internet,and not really meant for someone who wants to create and maintain an entire website from scratch.
What You Lose When You Use a WordProcessor to Create/Maintain a Website
So that you don't have an unrealistic expectation of what you can accomplish using Word for your website, let me mentionsome of the things you will lose out. Note that this doesn't mean that you can't use Word. You just won't be able to usethose facilities.
You will lose the ability to embed code supplied by other websites into your web page. Some sites, including thesitewizard.com, providespecial facilities which you can add to your website to extend it in some way. Such facilities are often provided in the formof code known as either HTML code, CSS code, JavaScript or some other thing. For example, there are numerousfree web statistics services thatyou can use so that you can find out how many visitors are using your website and so on. Such services typically require you toinsert some type of code into your web page. It doesn't seem to be possible to insert such code using Word.
Consequently, you will also lose the ability to create interactive features such as aputting a feedback / contact form on your site,inserting navigation menu buttons that worklike what you see in the left hand column of thesitewizard.com, and so on.
You will not be able to easily publish your document to your website from within your wordprocessor. WhileOffice 2007 (and perhaps 2010 too) appears to have some ability to integrate with some blog providers, it doesn't seem tohave an integrated facility to publish ordinary web pages via FTP. For those wondering what 'FTP' is, in layman's language,it's basically the method used to transfer web pages from your computer to the Internet.But don't worry. It's still possible to publish your document. You'll just have to use a separate program, called anFTP client, to do it.
Word also does not provide an easy way for you to update and change the design of all the pages on your website should you decideto change it in the future. If you have many pages on your website, and you decide that you want to change the design, you will haveto manually change them on every page yourself.
To be fair though, only commercial web editors likeDreamweaverhave this facility. At the time I write this, the freeKompoZer web editordoes not do this either. But it's a handy feature, especially if you have many pages on your site.
How to Create a Web Page Using Word 2003 and Word 2007 / 2010
To create a web page using Microsoft Word, just type your document as you normally would. (Sorry, this is not a Word tutorial, so I'm not going toteach you how to type a document. I'm assuming that if you are asking this question, you already know how to use Word, and just want to know ifyou can use it to make a web page.)
To create links to other web pages, do the following. If you use Word 2003, just skip to the Word 2003 section. If you use Word 2007 or 2010,just read that section. The 2 sections are written to be independent of each other.
How to Create a Link in Word 2007 (ie, from Microsoft Office 2007) and Word 2010 (from Office 2010)
Let's assume that you have some text that you want to make into a link, for example, you want to link to this article using the text'How to Create a Web Page UsingOffice 2003 / 2007'. Type the text you want into your document in the usual way, and select it. Click the 'Insert'tab at the top of the Word window. A new set of buttons will appear below 'Insert'. Click the 'Hyperlink' button.
A dialog box labelled 'Insert Hyperlink' will appear. Type the web address into the 'Address' field. For example, the web addressof this article is 'https://www.thesitewizard.com/faqs/create-website-with-microsoft-word-office.shtml' (without the quotes).Click the 'OK' button.
The text you selected should now appear as a blue underlined link in your document.
How to Create a Link in Word 2003 (ie, from Microsoft Office 2003)
To make some piece of text into a link, select the text in your document in the usual way. For example, let's say you want to make'Is it Possible to UseMicrosoft Word or Office to Create a Website?' into a link. Drag your mouse over those words or use the Shift key together withthe arrow keys to select them. Then click the 'Insert' menu, followed by the 'Hyperlink' item that appears in that menu.
A dialog box entitled 'Insert Hyperlink' should appear. Type the web address you want into the 'Address' field. For example,the address of this article is 'https://www.thesitewizard.com/faqs/create-website-with-microsoft-word-office.shtml' (without thequotes). Click the 'OK' button.
If you have done it correctly, the text you selected should now be underlined and appear in blue, the way many links on the web do.
How to Save Your Document as an HTML File in Office 2003, Office 2007 and Office 2010
Apart from inserting hyperlinks, the other thing you'll need to know is how to convert the document from its default '.doc' or '.docx'file format to an HTML file. To do this, if you are using Word 2003 or 2010, click the 'File' menu. If you are using Word 2007, clickthe nameless round button at the top left of the Word window. Then, whether you're using Word 2003, 2007 or 2010, click the'Save As' item in the menu that appears.
Once the 'Save As' dialog box appears, type the name of the file you want to save as in the 'File name' box. For example, if you aremaking the main page of your website, you should call the page 'index' (without the quotes). Then click the 'Save as type' drop down boxto expand it.
There are two possible options that you can use to create HTML files (ie, web page files). Select either the'Web Page (*.htm; *.html)' option or the 'Web Page, Filtered (*.htm; *.html)' option.
The 'Web Page, Filtered' option creates smaller and more standard web pages that contain only the formatting code understood by web browsers and search engines.The 'Web Page' option creates HTML pages with additional hidden Word formatting code. This additional code is (hopefully)ignored by web browsers and search engines, but is used interally by Word when you open that same file again to edit it. If theadditional code is not present, when you reopen the file in Word, you may not be able to use some of Word's features on your documentin the usual way. (For example, some facilities may be disabled.)
In view of this, unless you know what you're doing, you probably should save it as 'Web Page'. Your page will not beconsidered as 100% valid HTML, butthen, since you're using a wordprocessor to create the page, it probably isn't going to be 100% valid anyway, whether or notyou use the 'Filtered' option. (It will probably also be more bloated than it needs to be.)
Once you've selected either the 'Web Page' or 'Web Page, Filtered' options, the dialog box will change, and a new 'Change Title...'button will appear. Click it. A dialog box, called 'Set Page Title', will appear.
This page title is the title of your web page that you see in the search engine listings of your website. It also appears in the top menubar of the browser window when you view your web page in a web browser. It is not displayed in your document, but is an important partof a web page.
Type an appropriate title for your web page here and click the 'OK' button.
Next, if you use Word 2007 or 2010, click the 'Tools' button at the bottom of the dialog box, and select 'Web Options'.In the 'Target Browsers' drop down box, select the 'Microsoft ® Internet Explorer ® 6 or later' line, andclick the 'OK' button. (It's probably already selected by default in Word 2010, but you may want to still want tocheck to make sure, just in case.)
Before you proceed, notice that Word has changed your filename to add '.htm' to the end of it. For example, if you typed'index', the file will now be called 'index.htm'. Change it so that the ending is '.html' instead of '.htm'. That is, if Word has changedit to 'index.htm', modify it so that it is now called 'index.html'.
Finally, click the 'Save' button in the 'Save As' dialog box.
Word saves your file along with an additional folder containing any embedded pictures you have in your document as wellas some other data. You will have to publish both your file and this additional folder (and its contents) to your website.
How to Publish Your Web Page
Since Word doesn't have a built-in facility to publish your web page, you will have to use a separate program to do this. As mentionedearlier, such a program is called an FTP client. Please see the articleHow to Upload a File to Your Website Using theFileZilla FTP Client for a step-by-step guide on how to use one such FTP client, Filezilla (which is free), to publish your web pageand its associated folder.
Note: this assumes that you have already signed up for a web host and all the other things associated with website publishing. Thisguide doesn't deal with those aspects. If you don't know what I'm talking about, or have not done any of those things, please readHow to Make/Create Your Own Website:The Beginner's A-Z Guide. Otherwise, when you read the Filezilla tutorial, you'll wonder what I'm talking about when I mention'web host'.
Conclusion
Publishing a website using Word or Office isn't really ideal. You have to make do with a lot of limitations.However, in a pinch, it is possible to create a rudimentary web page if you need to.
Copyright © 2009-2018 by Christopher Heng. All rights reserved.
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Word for the web (formerly Word Web App) extends your Microsoft Word experience to the web browser, where you can work with documents directly on the website where the document is stored.
Alignment guides and live layout
Rulers and gridlines are not available in Word for the web. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Apply styles
The paragraph and character styles that are saved in a document are available to be applied to text in Word for the web. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Office add-ins
You can get an add-in for Word from the Office Store. Office add-ins only work in the Word desktop app and are not available in Word for the web. Learn how to get an add-in for Word.
Autosave
Word for the web automatically saves your document when you make changes.
AutoText
You can insert blocks of preformatted text using AutoText from your AutoText gallery. This is useful, for example, when you need to repeatedly enter the same large block of text and the text contains a lot of formatting. You create AutoText entries by adding selected text to the AutoText gallery. To learn more, see Automatically insert text.
Browse and start from professionally designed templates
Not available in Word for the web. Advanced design features, such as starting documents from a large selection of professionally designed templates hosted on Office.com, are only available in the Word desktop app. However, customers can configure a document library to launch a custom template when a user creates a new document. To learn more, see Add a content type to a list or library.
Bullets and numbering
With Word for the web, you can apply a choice of three bullet styles or five numbering styles. Click the Increase Indent and Decrease Indent buttons to change the list level for existing bulleted and numbered lists in the document, as well as those created in the Word desktop app. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Captions
Not available in Word for the web. If you have the Word desktop app installed on your computer, then you can use Word to add captions to a document. Learn more about adding captions in Word 2013.
Citations and bibliography
Not available in Word for the web. You can view existing citations in Word for the web, but you can't add citations. If you have the Word desktop app installed on your computer, then you can use Word to add a bibliography and citations to your document. Learn more about creating a bibliography in Word 2013.
Clipboard
Because of the limitations of web browser technology, copying and pasting text in Office for the web differs from copying and pasting text in the Office desktop applications. Learn more about copy and paste in Office for the web.
Collaboration, advanced
Not available in Word for the web. Advanced collaboration features, such as turning on Track Changes and merge, compare, and combine documents, are only available in the Word desktop app. As expected, tracked changes appear in Word for the web while in View mode.
Content controls
Content controls are individual controls that you can add and customize for use in templates, forms, and documents. To learn about content controls, see Content controls.
Cover pages
Microsoft Word offers a gallery of convenient predesigned cover pages. You can simply choose a cover page and replace the sample text with your own.
Creation of advanced document elements
Not available in Word for the web. Advanced document elements, such as AutoText, cover pages, bibliography, table of contents, index, equations, and watermarks, are only available in the Word desktop app.
Document parts and themes
Not available in Word for the web. Document parts and themes, such as content controls and pre-formatted collections of color scheme, font scheme, and graphic effect pre-sets are only available in the Word desktop app.
Document translation
Translate documents directly in the browser. Even document comments are translated.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a file hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software.
Equations
Microsoft Word includes built-in support for writing and editing equations, as well as equations that you can drop into your documents.
Find and replace
Find and replace text in your document using the Find and Replace tool in both Word for the web and Word desktop app. To learn more about using Find and Replace in Word for the web, see Find and replace text.
Font formatting
With Word for the web, you can apply font, font size, and several font formatting attributes—including bold, italic, underline, and superscript. Highlight text, change font color, and clear formatting for selected text. Document theme formatting is available to format text in Word for the web. Find the active theme fonts at the top of the Fonts gallery and theme colors in the Font Color gallery. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Footnotes and endnotes
You can add footnotes and endnotes to your documents in Word for the web. Learn more about adding footnotes and endnotes in Word for the web.
Full fidelity reading view
When you open your document in OneDrive or SharePoint, Word for the web opens the document in the browser. The layout and formatting are what you would see if you were to open the document in Print Layout view in the Word desktop app.
Graphic effect presets
You can use presets to apply special effects such as rotation, shadows, saturation, and text effects to graphics.
Headers and footers
Insert a header and footer to your document in both Word for the web and the Word desktop app. You also have the ability to apply headers and footers to all pages except the first page of your document. To learn more about using headers and footers in Word for the web, see What's New in Word for the web.
Hyperlinks
With Word for the web, you can easily create links to bookmarks within a document, and set a screen tip that displays when the cursor points to the link. Learn more about hyperlinks in Word for the web.
Index
An index lists the terms and topics that are discussed in a document, along with the pages that they appear on. To create an index, you mark the index entries by providing the name of the main entry and the cross-reference in your document, and then you build the index.
Insert online pictures
With Word for the web, you can insert a picture from a file saved on your local hard drive or from Bing Images. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
IRM and password protection
Word for the web displays documents that are protected with Information Rights Management (IRM). However, these documents can't be edited in the browser, and you can't create IRM-protected documents in Word for the web. Word for the web can't open documents that are encrypted with a password. Advanced document protection features, such as creating IRM-protected documents and applying password protection, are only available in the Word desktop app.
Learning Tools
Learning Tools are designed to help you improve your reading skills by boosting your ability to pronounce words correctly, to read quickly and accurately, and to understand what you read.
Lists
In Word for the web, start typing directly below an existing numbered list and your next line automatically becomes part of the list. Learn more about creating a list in Word for the web.
Mail merge
Not available in Word for the web. Advanced data integration features, such as mail merge using an Excel spreadsheet, is only available in the Word desktop app.
Offline viewing and authoring
Not available in Word for the web. Office for the web requires an internet connection and an internet browser. You need the Word desktop app installed on your computer to view and edit a document while disconnected from the internet or from your organization's on-premises Office Web Apps Server. If you have the Word desktop app installed, you can use the full functionality of Word to view and edit your document. When you save, the online document is updated with your changes. You can also download and save-as an offline copy of the document, but it will not be in sync with the online version. Learn more about Office Web Apps Server.
Page breaks
Insert page breaks in both Word for the web and the Word desktop app.
Page layout tools
With Word for the web, you can adjust margins, size of paper, and whether the page is laid out vertically or horizontally in your documents. Word for the web does not display rulers and gridlines. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Learn how to Delete a blank page in Word for the web.
Page layout tools, advanced
Not available in Word for the web. Advanced page layout features, such as page borders and line numbers, are only available in the Word desktop app.
Page numbers
Insert page numbers to your document in both Word for the web and the Word desktop app. You also have the ability to apply page numbers to all pages except the first page of your document. To learn more about using page numbers in Word for the web, see What's new in Word for the web.
Paragraph formatting
With Word for the web, you can align paragraphs left, right, or centered; run text right-to-left; increase or decrease indentation; and format paragraphs as a bulleted or numbered list. You can also clear formatting. You can't adjust line spacing in Word for the web. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Picture tools
With Word for the web, you can resize pictures and add alternative text in your document. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Preformatted font and color schemes
You can use themes to simplify the process of creating matching, professional-looking documents. Themes can be applied to tables, charts, shapes and diagrams to provide consistent fonts, effects, and color schemes.
Present online
Not available in Word for the web. With Word 2013 desktop app, you can use Office Presentation Service or Skype for Business Online to display a document during an online meeting so that colleagues can follow a link to watch as you page through the document.
Print to PDF
With Word for the web, you get a one-click process for generating a PDF and displaying the Print dialog box. Learn more about printing a document in Word for the web.
Printing, advanced
Not available in Word for the web. Advanced printing features, such as printing markups and document properties, are only available in the Word desktop app
Proofing tools
Word for the web automatically checks spelling as you type and applies a wavy red underline to misspelled text. Common AutoCorrect actions are included, such as correcting routine misspellings or converting characters to symbols. Additionally, you can set the proofing language or turn off the spelling checker for selected text. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Proofing tools, advanced
Not available in Word for the web. Advanced proofing tools, such as adding new words to the spell check dictionary, applying a custom dictionary, and language and translation tools, are only available in the Word desktop app.
Real-time co-authoring
More than one person can work simultaneously in a document. In Word for the web and Word 2016, real-time presence helps you see where your co-authors are working in the document so that you don't create conflicts as you edit, and you can see changes as they're being made. Word 2013 supports simultaneous editing, but there is no presence indication, and changes can't be seen by multiple authors until the document is saved. To learn more about real-time co-authoring, see What's new in Word for the web and Collaborate on Word documents with real-time co-authoring.
Reference tools
Bibliography, table of contents, and index features display in the document as expected in View mode. In Edit mode, they appear as placeholders that you can delete but not edit or update. Advanced reference tools, such as creating a bibliography, table of contents, index, or table of authorities, are only available in the Word desktop app.
Rendering of text boxes/shapes
You can insert text boxes and shapes and then quickly change the color of text, the inside (fill) color, or the color of the border.
Researcher
Researcher helps you find and incorporate reliable sources and content for your document. Researcher uses Bing to pull in the appropriate content from the web. For more information, see Research for your paper easily within Word.
Rich media
Not available in Word for the web. Advanced rich media features, such as inserting online videos or a PowerPoint video into your Word document, are only available in the Word desktop app.
Rich table formatting
Advanced table formatting, such as choosing pre-set table styles, setting options for header rows and columns, and setting options for shading and borders, are available in both Word for the web and the Word desktop app. To learn more about table formatting in Word for the web, see What's new in Word for the web.
Save as and Download a copy
With Word for the web, you can save a copy of the document locally.
Save as PDF
You can use Word for the web to save or convert your files to PDFs so that you can share them or print them using commercial printers. And you won't need any other software or add-ins.
Share
With Word for the web, it's a one-click process for sending a link that others can use to view or edit the document. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Simple table creation
With Word for the web, you can insert a table, edit table text, and easily edit basic table structure, such as adding or deleting rows and columns. More advanced table features, such as custom table styles, cell size, text direction, and sort order, are only available in the Word desktop app.
SmartArt
With Word for the web, existing documents with SmartArt display properly in View mode. In Edit mode, they appear as placeholders that you can delete but not edit. They can't be moved or resized in Word for the web. Advanced art features, such as inserting shapes, charts, text boxes, SmartArt, or WordArt, are only available in the Word desktop app.
Table of contents
Not available in Word for the web. You can view an existing table of contents, but you can't create one using Word for the web. If you have the Word desktop app installed on your computer, then you can use Word to create a table of contents in your document. Learn more about how to create a table of contents.
Table of authority
Not available in Word for the web. You can view an existing table of authority, but you can't create one using Word for the web.
Ms Word Web Layout
Tap
Use the Tap feature to find and reuse content. Tap surfaces relevant files that you use most frequently, allowing you to focus on document creation rather than searching for files and information. For more information, see Find and use the content you need.
Tell Me
When you need to accomplish something in Word for the web but don't know how, you can use the Tell Me search feature to quickly find what you're looking for. Tell Me understands what you're trying to accomplish and helps you do it faster by making suggestions.
Translation service
You can translate text, whether a whole file, selected words for phrases, or individual words, with the translation tools available in Word for the web.
Undo and redo
Undo a series of actions, or repeat an action.
VBA and forms scripts
Active X controls, embedded OLR objects, and a signature line will display in the document as expected in View mode. In Edit mode, they appear as placeholders that you can delete but not edit. They can't be moved or resized in Word for the web. Advanced controls and macros are only available in the Word desktop app. Learn more about differences between using a document in the browser and in Word.
Ms Word Web
View and add comments
With Word for the web, you can insert, edit, or delete comments in Edit mode. You can also reply to a comment or mark it as done, just as you would in Word on the desktop.
Watermarks
Watermarks are text or pictures placed behind the text in your document; for example, you can add text watermarks such as Draft or Confidential. Word has a gallery of watermarks to choose from, or you can create your own custom watermark, such as a company logo for your document.
Word count
Word for the web gives you a rough word count for words in your document. Learn more about word count in Word for the web.
Zoom
Zoom is available in View mode. With Word for the web, use your browser's view settings to zoom in or out in Edit mode. Learn more about word count in Word for the web.
Feature availability
Ms Word Website
To view feature availability across plans, standalone options, and on-premises solutions, see Office for the web service description.
Operating parameter limitations and specifications
Ms Word Web Cover Page
For information about operating parameter limits, see Operating parameter limitations and specifications in Word.