I am very new at this launched my first site in April and then the second in June. I started with a simple HTML editor but quickly found that it didn’t have the features that I was looking for. I now use Front Page it runs about $200 but is well worth it. It has a WYSIWYG feature which allows you to switch betweem preview and html view. This has been very helpful to me and allows me to learn the coding at my own pace. Trial and error is the best education.
You must be doing something right with a PR3, that’s more than I can say for my site. Argh!