Web Design Handbook « Template vs HTML coding
I prefer to create web pages directly in
HTML
for reasons I will outline. However, there are a large number of
programs that
can be used to create web pages. Chances are the word
processor you are accustom to using has a "save as" html
that can be used right now to create a internet ready page.
What may be missing
from
your word processor is an easy way to embed a graphic that has a web
link - or if that is not the problem it does not have an easy way to
upload your page and linked graphics to a web site.
Then you can get a free program off the internet that has the options of adding a graphic to the web page and a menu item to upload the page and the graphic to the website -- download HTML tools
You may then discover that you do not have a menu item to do something else that you would like to do -- Then again you find another program or maybe buy one that gives you all the features that you will believe you will need. Hopefully in this progress you don't run into a problem where one program gives you a feature you want on one page but another program gives you a feature you want on a different page -- at this point you have a choice; learn how to load pages on the internet without using one of the programs; decide which feature you can do without; or try to find a program that has both features. There is no need to spend hundreds of dollars on tools to create web pages, an alternative is to spend little time with a consultant who can show you how to upload pages.
The lack of features is one of the reasons I prefer to write pages directly in html. By coding myself I can take advantage of everything that can be done with HTML, DHTML, xHTML, etc. That does not mean I do not take advantage of programs that create HTML files ... I would not consider trying to copy and paste a spreadsheet into a HTML document! I would save it as an HTML then upload that html file; To embed it into a different html document I would use what is called an iframe; and to have links from the spreadsheet -- the trick is to upload the files you want to link to first then link to them from the spreadsheet. If the spreadsheet is cut and pasted into an HTML document, every time the spreadsheet is updated the same work that needed to be done the first time needs to be done again.
Another reason is to create pages which don't have a lot of waste in them. They download better and search engines do a better job at sorting them when they get indexed into search engines.