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Setting Accessible Preferences.

Before you begin designing in Dreamweaver, you should set your preferences to insure that the code will conform to a recognized grammar and that you will be prompted to use the accessibility features as you design. Following the steps below, you will change the Dreamweaver MX 2004 defaults to those settings recommended by the WAC. Note that not all settings may be required to create accessible sites, but are recommended best practice for consistent design.

Preferences -- General

1. From the EDIT menu, choose PREFERENCES (or press CNTRL-U).
2. From the CATEGORY list on the left, select GENERAL.
3. Make sure these two items are "checked":
1. Use <strong> and <em> in place of <b> and <i>
2. Use CSS instead of HTML tags.
   

Preferences Accessibility

4. From the CATEGORY list on the left, select ACCESSIBILITY.
5. Check all the boxes next to the HTML elements list (Form objects,
Frames, Media, Images).
   

Preferences Code Format

6. From the CATEGORY list on the left, select CODE FORMAT.
7. Set CENTERING to USE DIV TAG.
   

Preferences New Document

8. From the CATEGORY list on the left, select New Document.
9. From the drop-down list, select HTML as the default for new documents.
   
10. Choose to Make documents XHTML compliant.
    

Preferences -- Validator

11. From the CATEGORY list on the left, select Validator.
12. Select the code you are trying to validate too (XHTML 1.0 transitional) and the level of browser support you want to verify (IE & Navigator 4.0 and above).
    

13. Click on the OK button to save all your changes to PREFERENCES.

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