Previewing Your Web Page

Word allows you to create Web pages based on the contents of the document. In Word 2000, Word 2002, and Word 2003 Microsoft added the capability of seeing what your Web page will look like to a browser. You can get an idea of how things will look by choosing the Web Page Preview option from the File menu. This is similar in purpose to the Print Preview option—it allows you to see what your document looks like before actually committing it to a final form. The major difference is that Word loads your Web browser software and then displays your document using that program. In other words, the previewing does not take place within Word, but in your Web browser.

The Web Page Preview option was removed from the ribbons in Word 2007, but you can still find it in the program. Follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button and then click Word Options. Word displays the Word Options dialog box.
2. Click Customize at the left of the dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.)
3. Using the Choose Commands From drop-down list, choose All Commands.
4. In the list of commands, locate and click once on the Web Page Preview command.
5. Click the Add button. The command now appears at the right side of the dialog box.
6. Click OK. The dialog box closes and the command now appears on the Quick Access toolbar.

You should view the Web Page Preview command as a development tool only, and not as the final judge of how well things look. Once you save your Web page in an HTML format, then you should still load it using a Web browser (outside of Word) to make sure it looks as you expect it to. Better yet, you may want to load the page with two or three different browsers to ensure everything looks fine in each of them.