FrontPage Overview

Microsoft FrontPage is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor that is designed to maintain web sites.  FrontPage allows you to create a web page in a WYSIWYG environment while it builds the HTML code in the background making it easier than ever to design your web pages.  Below is an example screenshot on a split view of an HTML page.
 

FrontPage will work great in designing your eBay listings, but keep in mind that your eBay listing is not an entire website, therefore, there are some things you are going to have to format after creating your listing in FrontPage before your listing is sent on over to eBay.

The version I will be working with is 2003 Service Pack 2.  If you have a different version, some steps and procedures might be a bit different.

Don't Use Extra Features

Extra features include but is not limited to:  frames, iframes, web forms, layers, or any web components.  eBay only allows simple HTML like bold, italic, underline, tables, and a few others.  If you try to use some of FrontPage's extended features, they will not work.  Above all others, do not use FrontPages themes under any circumstances.  Think of FrontPage as the simplest HTML editor, and don't use anything special.

Of Topic: I don't recommend using FrontPage's extended features in any website either.  A lot of the features that Microsoft put in FrontPage are only compatible with Internet Explorer.  Very many features won't work in Mozilla FireFox or other non-Microsoft browsers.

Relative and Absolute Paths/URLs

This is a common problem that many people have when designing your listing in FrontPage.  You link to pictures, but once you list your item, the photos don't show up!  The issue here is the relative URL.

What's a Relative URL?

Lets try to relate it to driving directions.  Lets say that you go to your favorite maps site for some driving directions.  You type in your home address and your destination address, and you get your directions - from your house to your destination.  Now lets say that you were abducted by aliens and they forgot to return you to your house.  Instead they dropped you off at some other random place in the United States.  Do you think you will be able to find your destination only using your directions?  Of course not.  Those directions only tell you how to get to your destination relative to your house, and now that you don't know where your house is, you will never find your destination.

An absolute path or URL defines the location of the document including the protocol to use to get the document, the server to get it from, the subdirectory it's in, and the filename of the document.  A relative path takes advantage of were the document is called from.  You don't need to know too much about them to know how to tell the difference between them.  An absolute path in your listings will begin with 'http://'.  A relative path will not.  You cannot use a relative path in your listings because you are moving the document from your computer to eBay.  When you move the content, the relative paths will be broken, and you will find links not working, and pictures not showing up.  All of your paths weather they are for links or picture sources, must be absolute.  See the screenshot below.  There are two paths below.  Can you figure out which path is relative, and which one is absolute?

Looking at the sample above, you will see that there are URLs on lines 35, 38, 41, and 44.  The URLs on line 38, 41, and 44 are absolute.  They start with 'http://', and they show the full path.  The URL on line 35, however, is relative.  If I were to move that page to a new location, that URL would not know how to find its destination.  In order for that URL to work, it will have to be replaced with the full, absolute path.

Absolute Positioning

You cannot use absolute positioning.  I don't even recommend using it on actual web pages, let alone on an eBay description.  Avoid it at all costs.  Scan your code for any absolute positioning.  If you are using it, your code will include the word 'absolute', and the width and height values.

Extra Code that you Do Not Need

Deleting the extra code that you don't need is fairly easy.  To put it simply, you need to delete code at the beginning and the end of the page.  First the code at the beginning of the page.  View the code of your listing, and delete all code above and including the <body> tag.  Next, delete the two tags at the end of the page. Which are </body> and </html>.

The only exception to this is if you have style code.  If you see <style> code, do not delete it.  Delete all code around it until you hit the <body> tag, but save that style code.

Conclusion

If you follow these steps, your code will now be ready to make the change from your computer to eBay.

Copyright © 2006 Written by: pr0gr4mm3r