Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual

Calling this the "missing" manual may go a little too far, because I can't imagine any manufacturer doing such a thorough job with a guidebook. It's a comprehensive intro and reference that no Dreamweaver learner should do without. I looked at several and actually bought one that was so bad I wound up demanding (successfully!) a refund for at Borders. Good work, Mr. McFarland, and kudos to you for being visible and open to feedback through your blog.

I am a novice at web design - and with the help of this manual and of course Dreamweaver - I have set up two business web sites. I am pretty good generally with computers - though I think Dreamweaver and web design is still fairly complicated, but this book is able walk someone like me through the process and help me understand how to get things accomplished. There are several sections I won't have to use - but everything I have used is well written and thought out. I'd recommend this book.

I painful dug thru many of the "well respected" writing out there and none of them measure up to the clean and clearly well thought out to Dreamweaver CS3 The Missing manual by David McFarland .

I recently moved from Front Page over to Dreamweaver CS3 and was looking for the one book to use and have found it after a long and sometimes a painful search.

I had originally purchased Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Classroom in a Book based on the excellent verion of Photoshop by the same group. Yet the version that David wrote is far cleaner and it what I alway recommend to friends an colleges about " the right stuff" You just earned 5 stars from me, and I told hand those out very often...
Keep up the awesome work David !

I like this book and the tutorials, and I'm glad I bought it, BUT it gets annoying after a while with how verbose it is. For instance, the author even says at one point in the first chapter,

'"Enough already! I want to build a web page," you're probably saying.'

Yes, you're right! That IS what I was saying!

He then takes p.44-64, (20 pages!) to walk you through importing a graphic, copying a text file, adding a background, and centering the page in the browser. When you list on a piece of paper the steps that you just did and repeat it, it can be carried out within maybe 90 seconds.

I started to think that this book is like friends you may have that are really nice, they're smart, and you like them, but they just can't give you the short version of a story! I find myself jotting in the margin the one thing from the whole page to remember.

This is a book for absolute beginners, not only to Dreamweaver but to web pages in general. If you've been writing web pages in a text editor and just want to see how Dreamweaver can make everything easier, this book makes you want to pull your hair out! For instance, three leading paragraphs in Chapter 2 on adding text to your pages that can be summed up as, "Text is still the most important thing on the web". WE ALL KNOW THAT! Don't make me read a whole page for that!!

I buy a new computer book about once a week, and this book does what so many are guilty of - sidebars to the point of distraction. There is a sidebar topic, hint, etc. on virtually every page of this book, which, along with the wordiness, adds to the "Let's get this done!" frustration you start to feel.

If you're already familiar with html and web pages and aren't real patient with people that take forever to tell you something, get a different book.

As another reviewer said, this book could be 1/4 its size and would be SO MUCH better!

This book is a lifesaver! I still had many questions about Dreamweaver after taking a six-week online class, but no one to ask. Dreamwear CS3 the missing manual answered all of them and more. It has made my job easier, and completing task faster.