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Free HTML editors are often considered the best kind. They
offer flexibility and power without an outlay of cash. But beware, if
you're looking for more features and flexibility, there are many
reasonably priced HTML editors available.
Find the best HTML editor for you.
PSPad is a test and code editor which I often use in place of EditPad Lite or
Microsoft Notepad when editing text, HTML or PHP files. PSPad editor is a
programmers editor with support for multiple syntax highlighting profiles.
It comes with a hex editor, CP conversion, text differences, templates, macros,
spellcheck option, auto-completion, Code Explorer and much more. The program
is pre-configured for the most popular programming languages (VB, C++, SQL,
PHP, ASP, Python etc.) and you can further customize the syntax settings.
PSPad includes several additional tools that are especially useful for HTML
editing (compress, format code) and also integrates TopStyle Lite and TidyHTML.
The program can be used as IDE for any compiler. Additional features include
support for project, file browsing, custom shortcuts, built-in FTP client to
edit files on the server and much more. Works with all versions of Windows.
PSPad is freeware, 3.4 MB package 2007.
EditPad Lite is a general-purpose text editor which I use in place of Notepad.
It is designed to be small and compact, yet offer all the functionality you
expect from a basic text editor. EditPad Lite works with Windows NT4, 98, 2000,
ME, XP and Vista. EditPad Lite is free for non-commercial use 3.1 MB package.
If you want more editing power or need a text editor to use at work, check out
EditPad Pro.
Aptana IDE is an interesting take on Web page development. Instead of focusing
on the HTML, Aptana focuses on the JavaScript and other elements that
allow you to create Rich Internet Applications. One of the things I
really like is the outline view that makes it really easy to visualize
the DOM. This makes for easier CSS and JavaScript development.
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HTML-Kit is a free Web editor with a lot of features. It's one of the more
popular ones available for Windows. It has tag completion and HTML and
CSS validation and a lot of features you wouldn't expect in free
software. The only issue I have with it is that it doesn't default to
XHTML, you have to convert your documents to that. It has a lot of XML
and XHTML support, it just doesn't default to them.
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KompoZer is a great WYSIWYG editor. It is based on the popular Nvu editor - only
it is called the "unofficial bug-fix release." KompoZer was conceived
by some people who really liked Nvu, but were fed up with the slow
release schedules and poor support. So they took it over and released a
less buggy version of the software.
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Nvu is a great WYSIWYG editor. I prefer text editors to WYSIWYG editors,
but if you don't, then Nvu is a great choice, especially considering
that it's free. I love that it has a site manager to allow you to
review the sites that you're building. It's surprising that this
software is free. Feature highlights: XML support, advanced CSS
support, full site management, built-in validator, and international
support as well as WYSIWYG and color coded XHTML editing.
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Amaya is a bit hard to use, but it's endorsed by the W3C, so you know that
pages you build in it will be standards-based. It offers features like
CSS editing and will edit XML really well. Feature highlights: XML
support, scripting support, advanced CSS support, built-in validator,
and international support as well as WYSIWYG and color coded XHTML
editing.
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The CoffeeCup Free HTML editor is a text editor with a lot of potential. A
lot of the features it has in the menus are reliant on other CoffeeCup
products to use - such as FTP, the photo gallery maker, CSS editing,
and so on. This is still a powerful HTML editor, but I would recommend
you purchase the full version of the editor to get the real juice from
this product. One important thing to note: many sites list this editor
as a free WYSIWYG editor, but when I tested, you had to buy the full
version to get WYSIWYG support. The free version is a very nice text
editor only.
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Selida is a very nice WYSIWYG Web page editor for Windows. It offers a lot of
features that make it easy to edit Web pages and is free.
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SeaMonkey is the Mozilla project all-in-one Internet application suite. It
includes a Web browser, email and newsgroup client, IRC chat client,
and composer - the Web page editor. One of the nice things about using
SeaMonkey is that you have the browser built-in already so testing is a
breeze. Plus it's a free WYSIWYG editor with an embedded FTP to publish
your Web pages.
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Arachnophilia is not free - it's "careware", but just because you don't have to pay
cash for it doesn't mean it's not a good product. In fact, it's a great
text HTML editor with a lot of functionality. The color coding makes it
easy to use. It may or may not work on Mac and Unix. Feature
highlights: Color coded XHTML editing.
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Evrsoft First Page is a free HTML editor for Windows. It is a high quality text
editor, with an inline viewer to see what your pages will look like in
Internet Explorer. It is advertised as completely free, but to get rid
of the nag screen and get full access to all the features, you need to
purchase the Pro version. The pro version includes the design view
WYSIWYG editor, that is greyed out in the free version.
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NetBeans IDE is a Java IDE that can help you build robust Web applications. Like
most IDEs it has a steep learning curve because they don't often work
in the same way that Web editors do. But once you get used to it you'll
be hooked.
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Notepad++
is a Notepad replacement editor that adds a lot of features to your
standard text editor. Like most text editors, this is not specifically
a Web editor, but can be used to edit and maintain HTML. I use this
product a lot for managing my XML files, because with the XML plugin,
it can check for XML errors quickly.
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AceHTML Freeware is a slimmed down version of AceHTML Pro. It offers a lot of
great features for building and maintaining Web pages. It doesn't have
tag completion turned on by default, which I find annoying. But it does
default to an XHTML Web page rather than plain HTML. It detects what
browsers you have installed and puts them in the browser testing window
for you, which is nice, but as usual defaults to IE for preview in the
tool. It also has a code evaluator that checks for errors and tells you
the weight of the page.
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The free version of Dynamic HTML Editor is a few revisions back from the
paid version and it's only free for non-profits and personal use. But
if that is you, and you don't want to learn more than file transfers
for getting your Web pages to your host, then this program would work
fine. It has some graphics editing and is easy to drag and drop the
elements around on the page.
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Trellian WebPage is one of the few free Web editors that offers both WYSIWYG
functionality and image editing within the software. It also allows you
to use Photoshop plugins to customize it even more.
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XStandard is an XHTML editor that is embedded into the Web page itself. This is
not exactly an editor for everyone, but if you need to allow people who
visit your sites the opportunity to edit XHTML and you need valid XHTML
and CSS, this is a good solution. The Lite version is not as
customizable as the pro version. And the pro version also includes an
API to extend the functionality.
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Cream extends Vim to make it easier to use for the average person. If you're
used to using Vi or Vim but are tired of having to remember all the
commands, then Cream is a great alternative. It doesn't come out of the
box with a lot of HTML support, but there are add-ons you can get for
both Vim and Cream to make it handle HTML editing more effectively.
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Like vi, Emacs is found on most Unix systems and Mac systems which makes it
easy for you to edit a page even if you don't have your standard
software. Emacs is a lot more complicated than vi and so offers more
features, but I find it harder to use. Feature highlights: XML support,
scripting support, advanced CSS support, and a built-in validator, as
well as color coded XHTML editing.
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jEdit is a text editor written in Java. It is primarily a text editor, but
includes things like support for unicode, color coding, and allows for
macros to add-in features. Feature highlights: XML support, scripting
support, advanced CSS support, and international support as well as
color coded text XHTML editing.
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Xeena is a free XML editor from IBM. It can be used to edit Web pages as well
as XML. You need to get an IBM account to download.
Publisher's Site
MS XML Notepad is an XML editor that you can use to edit XHTML documents. MS XML Notepad requires .Net Framework.
Publisher's Site
Vim is an extended version of vi. It has all the benefits of vi plus some
improvements. It's not as readily available on Linux systems as vi is,
but when it's available it can really help streamline your Web editing.
Vim is not specifically a Web editor, but as a text editor it's one of
my favorites.
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Alleycode is a free Web editor that focuses on search engine optimization. There
are a lot of built-in features and links to the Alleycode Web site so
that you can check your site ranking, optimize your meta data, and
otherwise improve your search rankings. While I don't recommend sites
that "guarantee" top-level ranking like Alleycode does, that doesn't
mean that their Web editor isn't any good.
Publisher's Site
One of the best things about vi is that it is ubiquitous. If you build a
Web page on Unix or Macintosh servers vi will be available for you to
edit with. It can be hard to learn and doesn't offer a lot of extra
features, but the fact that it's everywhere makes it very useful to
know. Feature highlights: text editor, some versions have color coding.
Publisher's Site
Crimson is a very nice streamlined text editor. It offers a lot of features,
including tabbed pages, syntax highlighting for various types of text
files, line numbers, formatting options, and other coding extras. If
you use a text editor for writing Web pages, I would switch to Crimson.
Feature highlights: International support as well as color coded XHTML
editing.
Publisher's Site
PageBreeze Free HTML editor is a WYSIWYG editor that makes it easy to edit your
Web pages. You can switch between WYSIWYG and source mode to check your
HTML. And because it's made by FormBreeze.com you get the form
integration right in the software so that your forms will work without
any scripting or mailto issues.
Publisher's Site
SciTE is a source code editing program for Windows. I wouldn't recommend
using it for Web editing, but if you need to make quick changes to your
HTML, this program will do the job.
Publisher's Site
Netscape Composer is a simple little Web page editor that comes included with
Netscape. There isn't a lot to recommend it other than that it's free
and is built-in to your Web browser. Feature highlights: WYSIWYG XHTML
editing.
Publisher's Site
Microsoft Visual Studio Express is a way to create a simple Web page really
quickly. There are several starter kits to choose from, and with the
built in templates and wizards it's really easy to do.
Publisher's Site
Yahoo! SiteBuilder is a tool to allow customers of the Yahoo! Web sites to
easily build and maintain their Web stores. It's very easy to use, with
a lot of pre-built templates that can generate a site in minutes. There
is no access to the HTML in this tool and it can only connect to the
Yahoo! sites.
Publisher's Site
WebDwarf makes it easy for you to create and maintain Web sites without knowing
any HTML. It includes FTP to publish your pages and even an image
editor to maintain your images.
Publisher's Site
Cooktop is an XML editor. It has color coding and other text editing features.
You can also attach style sheets and XSLT for transformations
Publisher's Site
Angel Writer is not really a Web editor, it's an RTF text editor that can
save documents as HTML. It doesn't write valid XHTML and it adds a lot
of attributes and tags that have been replaced by style sheets. It did
put some styles in, but not where I expected it to. If you're looking
for a free Web page editor, there are many others that offer better
functionality. For example, when you save a document as HTML it puts
the file name and path in as the title - and I couldn't figure out how
to change it in the program. This is a fine text editor, but not a
great Web editor.
XMLFox is a validating XML editor that can be used to write XHTML. If you're
planning on using this for Web pages, be sure you understand HTML.
Publisher's Site
XMLPro is free to individuals, education, and non-profits. I couldn't find pricing
for businesses.
Publisher's Site
NoteTab Light is a very powerful free text editor with good HTML support.
It is one of the most popular HTML editors among About Guides. The macro
libraries make common tasks simple. NoteTab Light is a good text editor
but doesn't offer a lot of great features specifically for Web
development. Feature highlights: text XHTML editing.
Publisher's Site
Microsoft Notepad is a text editor that comes with Windows. It doesn't offer a
lot of features beyond coming with your operating system. However it is
free and somewhat easy to use. Feature highlights: XHTML editing.
Publisher's Site
Web Weaver EZ is a very limited free version of the inexpensive Web Weaver
EZ Plus. If you're thinking about getting EZ Plus, then download this
first to try it out. If you like it, you should consider spending the
~$15 for the upgrade, so that you can get features like tables, forms
and JavaScript.
Publisher's Site
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an
open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the
product is free to download, use, and distribute. Includes word processor,
presentation program, math function generator, drawing program, spread sheet, and
database program. May have 20% of market share of Office Programs world wide.
Who needs Microsoft Office.
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