Need Help Centering Page in Browser Window

Question

I'm designing my pages by creating a graphic framework in
Photoshop, slicing and exporting images into css using Fireworks to
a Dreamweaver html page. These pages look great; but they load into
the upper left corner of the browser window
I was taking a Dreamweaver class at the Denver Art Institute,
that was worthless. I dropped the class after the 4th week and am
now teaching myself. I asked the teacher how to center this kind of
page in a browser window, so the page would behave like most
webpages, centering as you change the width of the browser window.
I also wanted to add a repeating pattern in a background image. She
told me that she didn't know how, that I would have to build the
background into my Photoshop file. So, that's what I've been doing.
However, when people with smaller monitors change pages within a
site the built-in background requires them to recenter the page
manually each time.
Is there a way to center the page and add a background image
that is not built in? I've tried using Dreamweaver's background
image and margins in the Page Properties; but that just pushes the
page to the upper left and adds the background to the right and
bottom of the page.
Please visit:
http://www.livingwater.la,
http://www.renegadegraphics.biz
and
http://www.dentalmatchmakers.net
for examples.
Thanks for your help.
Mary

Answer 1

>I was taking a Dreamweaver class at the Denver Art
Institute, that was worthless
Yes, those classes usually are worthless because they focus
on using the tool without giving you the proper foundation for
understanding and managing html and css. Unfortunately, all of the
example sites you gave you AP Divs (layers) as a primary layout
method, which is a terrible approach. AP Divs should be used rarely
if ever, and only when you understand how they work. When the
visitors font is sized differently than you expected, the site
falls apart. The correct approach is to learn web
design/development outside of the context of a specific
application.
http://www.w3schools.com/html/
is a good place to start for a basic understanding of html and css.
And some basic layout techniques can be found here:
http://apptools.com/examples/pagelayout101.php