Before deciding to use Dreamweaver there are a few questions you must answer first. Some of the most important ones are:

Are you planning on printing the pages or will your site exist solely online? It is very difficult to design a printable site using DreamWeaver.

What web host are you using? Certain web hosts work better with Dreamweaver than others.

Are you using a Mac or a PC? Dreamweaver is absolutely necessary for Mac users.

I highly recommend using CSS style sheets with Dreamweaver. These offer the user the easiest and best way to layout a site. Creating a site from scratch with tables in Dreamweaver is complicated and can be very frustrating. Also it is important to understand that Dreamweaver unlike FrontPage does not work like a Word Processor. The editor is not WYSIWYG. You must use the features and keys of the program to lay out your site and to format the text. It is also important to know the basics of HTML because although Dreamweaver allows you to create in a visual screen, it is often necessary to go into the coding part and play around with the HTML code in order to create and layout your page to your desired specifications.

It is also essential that you upload all of the portions of your site to your FTP server. Using a CSS style sheet will create automatically several additional images and pages, which must be loaded.

You must also understand that the downside to using a pre-prepared style sheet is that you are somewhat limited as to where you can put what on your pages. If this is important to you, then you will want to go through creating tables in which to put your information.

Remember that more is less. Although this is true with any webpage, it is especially true in Dreamweaver. Too many tables and or loose text will cause problems with the practicality and usability of your site.

You must also understand that extensive graphics and animation work great with Dreamweaver but only if they are programmed into Flash and integrated into your site.

For more information on how to use Dreamweaver, I recommend Dreamweaver for Dummies and Dreamweaver the Missing Manual. These two books are honestly the best resources out there.