Microsoft Expression Web under macOS


Microsoft Expression Web 4, formerly available from Microsoft as a free download, remains perhaps the best WYSIWYG editor ever made for web pages made with ordinary HTML and CSS.

No version of Expression Web was ever made for the Mac. I have "wrapped" the Windows version in a Wineskin wrapper so that it can run under recent versions of macOS.

Download this ExpressionWebApp.zip file. Do not try to run it immediately! Because the app cannot be notarized, you will need to do the following:

Move the application from your Downloads folder to another folder (it doesn't matter which). Then, before you try to run the app, open a terminal and type this string, followed by a space:

xattr -rc

(remember: don't forget the space at the end). Do not press return. Instead, drag the application into the terminal window, and then press Return.

The app should now run. It should run reasonably well under macOS Mojave and later versions, perhaps also under some earlier versions. It requires Rosetta 2 to be installed on Apple Silicon Macs.

Expert users will want to find the Wineskin app deep inside the application, and run the configuration utility inside the Wineskin app, in order to "map" macOS folders to Windows drive letters. The utility is mostly self-explanatory, and if you can run Expression Web, you will be able to use this utility.


Edward Mendelson (edward [dot] mendelson [at] columbia [dot] edu)