how to design a website for beginners.

Well you can use anything to write HTML. Word, Notepad, a specialized editor like Homesite, Frontpage or Dreamweaver.

There are many books and websites on learning HTML. try google.com

As for less than an hour... well good luck with that.

Netscape has a built in web design program that makes a very nice website in just a couple of clicks and a little typing. Here's a neat little site that has been around for a long time: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/6658/ I got started withthese people. Here's some more technical support than the other two recommendations. Let me know how you do.

I have created a number of website using MS Word (see http://home.attbi.com/~jffilicetti).

Create your document with MS Word and save it as .html. Be sure everything looks the way you want it to look.

Next, find a free website such as www.geocities.com or others. They usually provide information to FTP (file transfer protocol) the files to your new site; some even give you a graphical site builder you can create your site with.

If you use an ISP, they probably supply you with both.

You might like to try this:
http://www.the-webwizard.co.uk/

You should start by reading all the tutorials you can find. There is a good basic one here; http://granite.swiftdialup.net/html/index.html
An hour sounds a little short to me. I started my first site about four years ago and I'm still building.
Jeff

eSitesBuilder is your complete web site building and hosting solution, providing everything you need - professional-quality web design templates, content management system, ad-free hosting, and ecommerce - to build a really professional looking web site with rich functionality

please put links to menu driven automatic pages ? for html and xml menus/options ?