Create websites and edit web pages with Coffeecup HTML Editor

Although it is very well respected, Adobe Dreamweaver is not the only software around for editing websites, though it may well be the most expensive. Coffeecup HTML Editor is much more reasonably priced at US$49 (around £30) and has plenty of useful tools for editing individual pages or entire sites.

Installation is simple. This is a demo of the full version that will work for 30 days to show what it can do. There are instructions within the program for upgrading to the full version.

The software is well designed with a pane for files in the website to the left of the main editor.

There is a split-screen preview, which is a very useful tool when you are not entirely sure what effect a change will have on the page or when trying to fit text in a fixed space. It updates when you pause typing but it isn't possible to edit the text in this section as you can with some alternatives such as Microsoft Expression web. Still having it at all is a step up from many other editors.

There are tools to help with creating a complete site, not just editing individual pages. The Create New Website project wizard includes setting up the FTP details for uploading your website.

There is a good collection of themes and layouts, including some designed for HTML5. The themes have a style with pictures and colours, whereas the layouts give the basic structure of the website.

Coffeecup uses coloured text in the editor to show the different parts of the files, which is a great help when trying to track down problems. It can suggest and complete tags and some of their options.

There is a code cleaner that will make your code consistent and easier to read. It's not the sort of tool that always seems importantat at the time, but come back to the site a year later, and you'll pleased with the better formatting.

It can publish websites to your own hosting account, or there is the option to use the hosting from hosting from Coffeecup, called SDrive.