Set page properties

Page titles, background images and colors, text and link colors, and margins are basic properties of every web document. You can set or change these properties, and specify the document encoding type that is specific to the language used to author the web page. You can also specify which Unicode Normalization Form to use with that encoding type using the Page Properties dialog box.

If you use both a background image and a background color, the color appears while the image downloads, and then the image covers up the color. If the background image contains any transparent pixels, the background color shows through.

Select Modify > Page Properties, or click the Page Properties button in the text Property inspector.
Edit the page properties and click OK.
Document Type (DTD)

Specifies a document type definition. For example, you can make an HTML document XHTML-compliant by selecting XHTML 1.0 Transitional or XHTML 1.0 Strict from the pop‑up menu.
Document Encoding

Specifies the encoding used for characters in the document.
Unicode Normalization Form

Enabled only if you select UTF‑8 as a document encoding. There are four Unicode Normalization Forms. The most important is Normalization Form C because it’s the most common form used in the Character Model for the World Wide Web. Adobe provides the other three Unicode Normalization Forms for completeness.
In Unicode, some characters are visually similar but can be stored within the document in different ways. For example, “ë” (e‑umlaut) can be represented as a single character, “e‑umlaut,” or as two characters, “regular Latin e” + “combining umlaut.” A Unicode combining character is one that gets used with the previous character, so the umlaut would appear above the “Latin e.” Both forms result in the same visual typography, but what is saved in the file is different for each form.

Normalization is the process of making sure all characters that can be saved in different forms are all saved using the same from. That is, all “ë” characters in a document are saved as single “e‑umlaut” or as “e” + “combining umlaut,” and not as both forms in one document.

For more information on Unicode Normalization and the specific forms that can be used, see the Unicode website at www.unicode.org/reports/tr15.

Set page font, background color, and background image

Use the Page Properties dialog box to specify several basic page layout options for your web pages, including the font, background color, and background image.

Select Modify > Page Properties, or click the Page Properties button in the text Property inspector.
Select the Appearance category and set the options.
Page Font

Specifies the default font family to use in your web pages. Dreamweaver uses the font family you specify unless another font is specifically set for a text element.
Size

Specifies the default font size to use in your web pages. Dreamweaver uses the font size you specify unless another font size is specifically set for a text element.
Text Color

Specifies the default color to render fonts with.
Background Color

Sets a background color for your page. Click the Background color box and select a color from the Color Picker.
Background Image

Sets a background image. Click the Browse button, then browse to and select the image. Alternatively, enter the path to the background image in the Background Image box.
Dreamweaver tiles (repeats) the background image if it does not fill the entire window, just as browsers do. (To prevent the background image from tiling, use Cascading Style Sheets to disable image tiling.)

Repeat
Specifies how the background image will be displayed on the page:
- Select the No-repeat option to display the background image only once.
- Select the Repeat option to repeat, or tile, the image both horizontally and vertically.
- Select the Repeat‑x option to tile the image horizontally.
- Select the Repeat‑y option to tile the image vertically.
Left Margin and Right Margin

Specify the size of the left and right page margins.
Top Margin and Bottom Margin

Specify the size of the top and bottom page margins.

Set link properties

You can define the default font, font size, and colors for links, visited links, and active links.

Select Modify > Page Properties, or click the Page Properties button in the text Property inspector.
Choose the Links category and set the options.
Link Font

Specifies the default font family to use for link text. By default, Dreamweaver uses the font family specified for the entire page unless you specify another font.
Size

Specifies the default font size to use for link text.
Link Color

Specifies the color to apply to link text.
Visited Links

Specifies the color to apply to visited links.
Rollover Links

Specifies the color to apply when a mouse (or pointer) hovers over a link.
Active Links

Specifies the color to apply when a mouse (or pointer) clicks on a link
Underline Style

Specifies the underline style to apply to links. If your page already has an underline link style defined (through an external CSS style sheet for example), the Underline Style menu defaults to a “don’t change” option. This option alerts you to a link style that has been defined. If you modify the underline link style using the Page Properties dialog box, Dreamweaver will change the previous link definition.

Set page heading properties

You can define the default font, font size, and colors for links, visited links, and active links.

Select Modify > Page Properties, or click the Page Properties button in the text Property inspector.
Choose the Headings category and set the options.
Font

Specifies the default font family to use in your web pages. Dreamweaver will use the font family you specify unless another font is specifically set for a text element.
Heading 1 through Heading 6

Specify the font size and color to use for up to six levels of heading tags.

Set title and encoding page properties

You can define the default font, font size, and colors for links, visited links, and active links. The Title/Encoding Page Properties category lets you specify the document encoding type that is specific to the language used to author your web pages as well as specify which Unicode Normalization Form to use with that encoding type.

Select Modify > Page Properties, or click the Page Properties button in the text Property inspector.
Choose the Title/Encoding category and set the options.
Title

Specifies the page title that appears in the title bar of the Document window and most browser windows.
Document Type (DTD)

Specifies a document type definition. For example, you can make an HTML document XHTML-compliant by selecting XHTML 1.0 Transitional or XHTML 1.0 Strict from the pop‑up menu.
Encoding

Specifies the encoding used for characters in the document.
If you select Unicode (UTF‑8) as the document encoding, entity encoding is not necessary because UTF‑8 can safely represent all characters. If you select another document encoding, entity encoding may be necessary to represent certain characters. For more information on character entities, see www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/entities.html.

Unicode Normalization Form

Enabled only if you select UTF‑8 as a document encoding. There are four Unicode Normalization Forms. The most important is Normalization Form C because it’s the most common form used in the Character Model for the World Wide Web. The other three Unicode Normalization Forms are also provided.
Include Unicode Signature (BOM)

Includes a Byte Order Mark (BOM) in the document. A BOM is 2 to 4 bytes at the beginning of a text file that identifies a file as Unicode, and if so, the byte order of the following bytes. Because UTF‑8 has no byte order, adding a UTF‑8 BOM is optional. For UTF‑16 and UTF‑32, it is required.
Reload

Converts the existing document, or reopens it using the new encoding.

Use a tracing image to design the page

You can insert an image file to use as a guide in designing your page:

Select Modify > Page Properties, or click the Page Properties button in the text Property inspector.
Choose the Tracing Image category and set the options.
Tracing Image

Specifies an image to use as a guide for copying a design. This image is for reference only, and does not appear when the document is displayed in a browser.
Transparency

Determines the opacity of the tracing image, from completely transparent to completely opaque.

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