Dreamweaver CS4 For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Coordinating Your Design Work

In This Chapter

• Creating many pages quickly with a template

• Making changes to multiple pages with templates

• Using Dreamweaver's Library for frequently used elements

• Designing a Web page with the Dreamweaver Tracing Image feature

Strive for consistency in all your designs — except when you're trying to be unpredictable. A little surprise here and there can keep your Web site lively. But, most Web sites work best and are easiest to navigate when they follow a consistent design theme. Case in point: Most readers take for granted that books don't change their designs from page to page, and newspapers don't change headline fonts and logos every day. Books and newspapers want to make life easier for their readers, and consistency is one of the primary tools for making sure readers find publications familiar. That doesn't mean you should limit modern Web design to what's possible in print, but it does mean we can all learn a thing or two from hundreds of years of print design.

Dreamweaver offers several features to help you develop and maintain a consistent look and feel across your site. In this chapter, you discover three of my favorite Dreamweaver features — templates, Library items, and the Tracing Image feature. Find out how they combine to make your design work faster and easier to manage, and you'll be well on your way to simplifying your work even before you start. The most important feature covered in this chapter is the ability to create templates. ...