Nvu (pronounced "N-view") is a WYSIWYG HTML editor, based on the Composer component of Mozilla Application Suite and Gecko 1.7. It is a common WYSIWYG editor for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh, intended to be an open source equivalent to proprietary software like Microsoft Expression Web and Adobe Dreamweaver  (although to date it is missing many features they possess). As a WYSIWYG editor, it is designed to be easy for novice users and does not require any knowledge of HTML or CSS to use. KompoZer is an alternative off-shoot of the Nvu open source program.

Nvu was the dream child of Kevin Carmony, CEO for Linspire, who wanted an easy-to-use, WYSIWYG HTML editor for Linux users. Under Carmony's direction, Linspire started and sponsored Nvu, hiring Daniel Glazman, former Netscape Communications Corporation employee and CEO/Founder of Disruptive Innovations, to be the lead developer.

Standards compliance

Nvu complies with the W3C's web standards. By default, pages are created in accordance to HTML 4.01 Transitional and use CSS for styling, but the user can change the settings and choose between:

• Strict and transitional DTD's
• HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0
• CSS styling or the old <font> based styling.

The application includes a built-in HTML validator, which uploads pages to the W3C's HTML Validator and checks for compliance.