You CAN make webpages in Microsoft Word, In fact i think most all of the office products have a feature that can export themselves into HTML files (Converting EXCEL spreadsheets to html is a pain by hand...) But if you ever have to go back and reedit the code later without word or with another program or heaven forbid with a text editor you will find yourself waiding through alot of extra content that you dont need to read or deal with. Also the filesize of WORD exported HTML is HUGE! Heck dreamweaver even has a function called "Clean up WORD Html" to clean up how sloppily microsoft exports it.

i'm very well aware that you can, though why anyone would WANT to is another question ;)

Notepad! Go Notepad! w00t!

And for some operations, as everybody's said, Dreamweaver 4.0 or MX does well. Pretty easy to learn too. :D have fun

People ACTUALLY USE NOTEPAD?

I find nothing wrong with pure text-editing... but notepad is IMO very, very (insert verys as needed) painful. At the very least, get a program with syntax coloration (I'm partial to HTML-kit, google it if you want, but there are alot out there.)

I use it because.. the icon is right there in my quick launch bar. If I am suddenly inspired, or notice a bug in something, need to jot an idea down, etc, I click the notepad icon and less than a second later it pops up.. free of any complication or glitter regularly present. Nothing more than a.. notepad for me to write on. Reasons, times, and uses for everything.

Ditto. Notepad loads faster than any editor I've wanted to use for small 'less than a few minutes' tasks.

Notepad to code does not make you 1337! It's useful on occasion, like in the cases that Brandon suggested, but opening up Dreamweaver in code view is very efficient. For small changes (adding in a word or tag here and there), obviously Notepad is the best, but a good editor is great for someone who knows how to use it properly.

on the other hand, typing in every single code elements yourself means you actuall know whats going into your site's layout.... which is more than i can say of some WYSIWYG users...

If all you want is a very simple page, and you want to create it really quickly, you could just open Outlook Express, type all the stuff in, go to View>Show source, and copy the html :) I know it is stupid, but the code is actually pretty clean and simple ;)