Set an ID or Class on the body of the page and then set the condition in your CSS.
i.e.:
Home Page = #home
About Page = #about
Then style the button accordingly.

thanks but you kind of lost me here.

i built the buttons in fireworks, so they're images. they're not css creations. then in dreamweaver, i used the "Navigation Bar" wizard tool to create the nav bar. And in the nav wizard, it ask for an "Up", "Over" and "Down" image. My "over" and "down" image is the same. It's the button with black font instead of white. in the Dreamweaver help file, it says that the "Down" image is "the image to display after the user has clicked the element."

So what am i missing? thanks!

<div id="top_nav"><img src="pics/left_logo.jpg" border="0"><a href="index1.htm" target="_top" onClick="MM_nbGroup('down','group1','home','pics/home_down.jpg',1)" onMouseOver="MM_nbGroup('over','home','pics/home_down.jpg','',1)" onMouseOut="MM_nbGroup('out')"><img src="pics/home.jpg" alt="" name="home" border="0" onload=""></a><a href="services.htm" target="_top" onClick="MM_nbGroup('down','group1','services','pics/services_down.jpg',1)" onMouseOver="MM_nbGroup('over','services','pics/services_down.jpg','',1)" onMouseOut="MM_nbGroup('out')"><img name="services" src="pics/services.jpg" border="0" alt="" onLoad=""></a><a href="clients.htm" target="_top" onClick="MM_nbGroup('down','group1','clients','pics/clients_down.jpg',1)" onMouseOver="MM_nbGroup('over','clients','pics/clients_down.jpg','',1)" onMouseOut="MM_nbGroup('out')"><img name="clients" src="pics/clients.jpg" border="0" alt="" onLoad=""></a><a href="about.htm" target="_top" onClick="MM_nbGroup('down','group1','about','pics/about_down.jpg',1)" onMouseOver="MM_nbGroup('over','about','pics/about_down.jpg','',1)" onMouseOut="MM_nbGroup('out')"><img name="about" src="pics/about.jpg" border="0" alt="" onLoad=""></a><a href="news.htm" target="_top" onClick="MM_nbGroup('down','group1','news','pics/news_down.jpg',1)" onMouseOver="MM_nbGroup('over','news','pics/news_down.jpg','',1)" onMouseOut="MM_nbGroup('out')"><img name="news" src="pics/news.jpg" border="0" alt="" onLoad=""></a><a href="contact.htm" target="_top" onClick="MM_nbGroup('down','group1','contact','pics/contact_down.jpg',1)" onMouseOver="MM_nbGroup('over','contact','pics/contact_down.jpg','',1)" onMouseOut="MM_nbGroup('out')"><img name="contact" src="pics/contact.jpg" border="0" alt="" onLoad=""></a>
</div>

I'm not a Dreamweaver user, but that just looks like a JavaScript mouseover script. The code you posted above is controlled by that script.

You could still use CSS the way I described to do this, but it sounds like you want to handle this via the WYSIWYG...I can't help you there unfortunately.

i'm not sure what WYSIWYG is?

can anyone else provide some insight into this problem? thanks in advance!

i'm not sure what WYSIWYG is?

It's an acroynm for "What You See Is What You Get". Dreamweaver is part WYSIWYG and part code editor.

i built the buttons in fireworks, so they're images. they're not css creations.

You can control the display of images with CSS.