WYSIWYG is an acronym for “What You See Is What You Get.” It’s used to describe website creation tools that give you a word-processor like interface to lay out page elements and enter text, rather than writing HTML in a text editor.
This is a list of free WYSIWYG editors. Most of them are just as good (and in some cases, better) than the commercial packages. In general they lack a library of graphics and templates included with the software which may be part of non-free software packages. Later I’ll post a list of places to get free graphics and images on the web. If someone would be so kind as to remind me to come back and link it here?
The software packages listed here are full versions, not trials. You can legally download this software for free.
KompoZer
KompoZer is an easy-to-use editor which will do pretty much everything you need. You can read a little more about its capabilities on the Features page. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux on the Download page. It’s an updated version of the older NVU editor. (I created the original version of this page using KompoZer.)
There is not much documentation available on the KompoZer website, but the manual included under the Help menu is quite good. There are also resources on the old NVU editor home page that still apply to KompoZer. There is a tutorial on thesitewizard.com for getting started with KompoZer: How to Design and Publish Your Website with KompoZer.
SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey is a Mozilla-based web browser that includes a Composer tool for making web pages. (If you remember the old Netscape Composer, this is very similar.) The option is located under Windows on the menu bar. SeaMonkey is available for Windows, Mac and Linux on the Download page.
There is a tutorial on using the SeaMonkey Composer on thesitewizard.com: How to Design and Publish Your Website with Mozilla Composer. You can also find more SeaMonkey resources on the SeaMonkey Community page.
Amaya
Amaya is an editor and browser developed by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). It has a lot of features and is very standards-focused, but I find it a little more complicated and less intuitive to use than the others. It’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux on the Distributions page. Make sure to download a release, not a snapshot.
There is less community documentation and fewer tutorials for Amaya than the
other software packages, but the user manual is available online.
