For years, Web designers have wrestled with the fact that HTML wasn't built to handle page layout. Early on, innovative designers began using HTML tables as a way to build a grid of rows and columns on a page. Tables did control a page's layout, but maintaining and updating pages was a real pain.

With the development of Dreamweaver's layers, controlling and maintaining page layout has gotten much easier. Anything you can normally place directly on a page -- text, graphics, Flash movies, etc. -- can sit inside a layer. You then position the layers on your page by dragging and dropping them. By using layers to handle page design, you can essentially lock down your layout.

This excerpt will show you how to build a basic page layout using Dreamweaver's layers. Then you'll see how to control and manipulate your layout. We've posted this excerpt as a PDF file. To open the PDF file in your Web browser, click "Layers." You can also download the PDF to your machine for later viewing.

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Excerpted from Ten Ton Dreamweaver by Geoff Blake. Copyright © 2006 Geoff Blake. Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and Peachpit Press.