Update (April 2012) This is still available.

Microsoft SharePoint Designer is now available as a free download.

Decent web editing applications are normally £200 plus. Microsoft SharePoint Designer is no exception. Although aimed at Microsoft’s SharePoint technology it will happily edit any HTML, or .ASP/.ASPX site. It looks and feels exactly like their Expression Web software. The differences seem to be that it doesn’t have HTML templates that come with Expression Web and it cannot edit .PHP, as Exp Web 2.0 now can.

The most important difference to Expression Web is that SharePoint Designer is now free.I’ve been using Exp Web since it came out and to me it is a better product than Dreamweaver, and no remotely like the appalling FrontPage, that was Microsoft’s original we editor.

A new version of SharePoint is coming soon, and I suspect that this will lead to a new version of SharePoint Designer, grab this one while you can.