When i hand code a webpage in Notepad++ and then open it in Dreamweaver the layout is all over the place but when i look in the browser it looks normal
why is this and how can i correct it Thank you
That’s just one of the many problems with Dreamweaver. I would encourage you not to use it.
For testing, I would recommend IE with Debugbar, and Firefox/Chrome with the Web Developer plugin and firebug extensions.
Because Dreamweaver is not a browser.
Because older versions of Dreamweaver can’t handle floats and modern css3.
Because Dreamweaver is NOT a tool for accessing your layout!!!
Because you are using an older version of Dreamweaver perhaps. (Even DW in CS5 fails to display some of my pages correctly!)
Because you may have javascript that isn’t running in Dreamweaver (see first point).
And it just does not matter at all how Dreamweaver displays your page.
Nicky,
No matter what software you use to create text and other characters, each program assigns its own information to the data so that when you copy and paste it into another program, there is always the potential for things to be lost in translation. For example copying and pasting text with embedded links from a word document into a wordpress editor causes links to break. Copying and pasting text from the web into a word document doesn’t always show up as intended.
You should stick with editing in whatever program you started in and avoid copying and pasting things from one program to another.
Best,
Shawn
While this might be true for word processors, this really has nothing to do with nicky8694’s question… 
Nicky asked why it was happening. I think my explanation (although I used other programs as examples) was pretty clearly related to her question. Notepad++ assigns information to the characters it produces just the same as Dreamweaver does and both programs interpret that data differently when its copied from other software. The OP also asked what they could do to fix it and I suggested that they not copy and paste from one program to another.
Dreamweaver’s WYSIWYG integrated browser is the problem, not the copying and pasting of formatted code. It’s a browser rendering issue–no amount of copying and pasting is going to solve the issue. The integrated browser is some sub-par quirks mode engine and as Dr John mentioned simply doesn’t understand what to do with float layouts and newer CSS3 techniques.
Stick with Dreamweaver for the design only, i used to use Dreamweaver all the time for my sites but then i just got sick of how messy everything is with the coding. Vim is a good text editor, try that.
Agree for that .
As my little experiences in Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver itself has some tricky steps to follow .
I crated my web in Dreamweaver and it show not correctly position also.
What you may try is check all code, It may help .
It may be due to some miss places of some codes.
Anyway after I finish code in Dreamweaver I use 3 Web browser ( IE, Chrome and Fire fox ) to check .
And I use CSE HTML Validator to recheck for final.
This happens to me also, and it`s because Dreamweaver has some issues and is misplacing the code, throwing blank lines and spaces all over the place. I normally fix that manually , inside DW, then it will look ok everytime you open that file.