13.1. Why SharePoint Designer 2007?
The big question is of course why you need SharePoint Designer. What does it allow you to do that cannot be done using a web browser? The answer is: A lot! In fact, most of the things you can do with the web browser, such as adding and managing Web Parts, can also be done in SharePoint Designer, and more. Here is a quick list of things that SharePoint Designer allows you to do with SharePoint 2007 web sites:
Manage Master Page files.
Manage page layout files.
Create workflows for SharePoint lists and libraries.
Add new Web Part zones.
Add some special Web Parts.
More advanced formatting of lists.
Add extra links in the Quick Launch bar, and the title bar.
Add buttons and tabs.
Add background pictures.
Create new site themes.
Install special SharePoint packages.
Back up and restore individual team sites.
And there is more. Note that only SharePoint Designer 2007 has this SharePoint 2007 integration. SharePoint Designer 2007 is not only the recommended web design tool for SharePoint 2007, but it will also work with the previous versions of SharePoint 2003. Therefore, if you have a mixed SharePoint 2007 and 2003 server environment, you will only need one single design tool. SharePoint Designer 2007 is also enhanced in many ways over FrontPage and offers more functionality, while still being easy to work with.
Even though SharePoint Designer 2007 (from now on, referred to as SPD) is a general design tool for standard web sites, it has special features when ...
