I have used MS Front Page 2000 to design two web sites. Needless to
say, both have "that Front Page look" that many think cheesy. Since I
don't write HTML code, I'm not prepared to go to a program like
Dreamweaver. Is there any way to modify the FP 2000 themes such that
they don't have that cookiecutter appearance? I have visited several
web sites that offer additional themes at a price, but none of them
would dramtically alter the basic structure/appearance of my
FP-created sites. An alternative would be to upgrade my FP 2000 to the
most recent edition, but I'm concerned that wouldn't have the desired
effect either. Any suggestions?

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Clarification of Question by nautico-ga on 25 Jul 2004 09:04 PDT

I hear you, and while I appreciate the wisdom of your comments, I
don't have the time or inclination to learn another program with a
steeper learning curve than Front Page. Also, I work with a
co-webmaster on one of my two sites, and I wouldn't want to burden him
with the same shifting of gears.

you should just suck it up and learn some html.  Knowing html is not
required to use dreamweaver, but learning html is not that difficult. 
You don't have to build entire sites by typing code, but you should
learn to recognize the code that FP or DW is creating for you.  FP
will put in unnnecessary junk that can be deleted.  html is more
intimidating than it is difficult.  And you have come this far, right?

http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=html+

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Data_Formats/Markup_Languages/HTML/Tutorials/

Nautico --

I've got to vote with Daytrader76 on this: until you learn something
about HTML you'll never learn how poorly constructed Microsoft Front
Page HTML pages are.  It's ironic that Micrsoft -- whose programmers
pride themselves on writing tight, efficient code -- has loosed Front
Page on the Internet.  Front Page pages are huge, with text tags on
practically every line giving unnecessary instructions.

By learning something about HTML you'll learn how to create
good-looking AND efficient designs.

My recommendation: the companion website to David Siegel's book,
"Creating Killer Web Sites" --
http://www.killersites.com/

As Daytrader indicated, HTML is intimidating because of detail and
limitations but it's not a difficult to learn to program.  Indeed, its
prime advantage is that it has probably done more to spread the
knowledge of computer programming rules than any other previous
language.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA