WYSIWYG Editors and Web Design Tools

WYSIWYG editors are web design programs that allow you to easily design a web site in the same way you would use a word processor.

Below are some wysiwyg editor choices from very easy to use to full featured, server side scripting capable editors. All have a wysiwyg mode, and most are free to download.

Easiest Beginner Level WYSIWYG editor

Website Tonight®

Website Tonight® is not just a wysiwyg editor, it is a complete website package, starting at only $4.99 a month, including hosting, over 800 professionally designed templates to choose from, and a wysiwyg editor that ANYONE can easily use.

If you are a total web design newbee and need to have a site up and running fast, this is the best route for you to take. Then, after you have gained some knowlege and experience, you can easily begin to expand and upgrade your site.

Full Feature Starter WYSIWYG editor

Mozilla Composer

It's free and Composer is a great starter editor that comes bundled in the Mozilla Suite. Design your page with the wysiwyg view and then take a look at the source view to see how HTML is being generated.

Although I no longer use this editor, it was the one that got me started in the very beginning, and I have clients who have grown very comfortable with this wysiwyg editor and have been using it successfully for years

Advanced WYSIWYG Editors

NVU (N-View)

Although NVU is free to download, there is nothing lightweight about it. It will handle any job from wysiwyg editing to full blown server side scripting. This free html editor is the only one I have found, so far, that rivals the functionality of my $360 Dreamweaver editor. It even features the addition of Joomla template plugins for quickly creating new Joomla cms system templates.