As you work on your web pages in Adobe Dreamweaver, you will often need to review them in a web browser. Conveniently, Dreamweaver allows you to configure as many browsers as you would like to see use for previewing. You can specify a first browser as your primary, or preferred, browser; you can then choose a secondary browser and as many additional browsers as you like.

Naturally, the first step is to make sure that the browser software is installed on your computer. Next, to specify your preferred browser, go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences. (This is the Windows location of Dreamweaver Preferences: on a Macintosh, go to the Dreamweaver menu and choose Preferences.)

The various categories are displayed on the left of the Preferences window. Choose the Preview in Browser category. You may have already configured a browser as your primary browser and possibly another as your secondary. If you wish to change this, simply click on the appropriate checkboxes to specify which is which.

To add an additional browser, just click on the plus sign (+), locate the browser software and double-click to open it. You can repeat this procedure as many times as you like.

To see one of your web pages using one of the configured browsers, choose File - Preview in Browser then choose the name of the required browser from the submenu. You can also use a keyboard shortcut: to preview using your primary browser, it’s Shift-F12 on Windows or option-F12 on a Macintosh; to preview in the secondary browser, it’s Control-F12 on Windows or Command-F12 on a Macintosh.

Once you’ve looked at the preview, to return to Dreamweaver, simply close the browser window.

It is also possible that sometimes you’d like to preview pages without saving the changes you’ve made to your document. Dreamweaver makes this easy but, first, let’s have a look at what normally happens when you preview a file that has been modified.

Dreamweaver displays a dialogue box asking us if we’d like to save the changes. If we click “No”, it gives us a preview of the last version that we saved rather than the version that we’re currently working on and, naturally, if we click “Yes”, Dreamweaver will save our changes before previewing the file. This can sometimes be inconvenient, since you may not be ready to save your changes.

If you’d like to be able to preview a file at any time without saving your changes, return to your Browser Preview category of Dreamweaver’s Preferences and activate the option “Preview Using Temporary File”. When this option is activated, Dreamweaver will create a temporary file containing the latest version of your document and then opens it in the browser. When the browser window opens, you will notice that the file name does not correspond to the name of your document it a temporary file name generated by Dreamweaver.