An Inexpensive HTML Editor
Finding good, powerful, and above all inexpensive software isn’t easy. Sure, you can spend $400 or more on a copy of Microsoft Office, but why go to that expense if you’re only concerned with basic word processing and a few spreadsheets? Instead, pick up Open Office for free and it’ll probably handle 99% of the Word functionality you’re likely to use.
Likewise, paying Macromedia $300 or more for Dreamweaver (or spending an equivalent amount of cash for another commercial HTML editor/layout tool) is fine if you’re in business and need a Cadillac — or, for the money, Porsche — solution. But many people who write HTML may not need anything that full-featured. It turns out there’s a highly rated and much less expensive option on the marketplace. It’s called NoteTab and it costs only $39…if you need all the available features. Otherwise, it’s free.
For HTML folks, it has a rich feature set. It’ll let you “build document templates, add bookmarks, convert text to HTML on-the-fly, and take charge of your code. Use a simple, power-packed scripting language to create anything from a text macro to a mini-application.”
That’s just the free, or “light” version. If you decide to pony up some cash for the more full-featured Pro or Standard editions, you get “additional features including a thesaurus, multilingual spell checker, text-outline file editing, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and the creation of toolbar buttons to execute custom scripts and wizards.” So not only will NoteTab handle your HTML markup, it’ll also spell-check your documents and help with grammatical mistakes.
This isn’t just a Johnny-come-lately utility, either. It’s been around since 1998 (which is surprising since I’d never encountered it before) and has received numerous awards. The developer is even giving out a free “economic downturn” upgrade to version 5 customers by allowing them a free migration to version 6.
This is a nice, lightweight application that does just about anything most HTML writers would need. As a plus, I bet it generates W3C-compliant code–unlike most Microsoft tools to date. Try it out for free, and pay the upgrade fee if you like it. Take all the money you save over a copy of Dreamweaver, and treat yourself (and your significant other, of course) to a night on the town. Or two.