"Are there any good tools/utilities for easily laying out pictures and text on a web page? I want an easy way to put some images and text on a page with text beside pictures and/or more than one picture across the page."
Kompozer is nice and quick and easy to use.
Would Texmaker, Eric, TEA be more the sort of thing you're looking for. All are quite sophisticated apps.
I've only just been experimenting with Texmaker this last few days so not an expert but someone else may use it and be able to advise.
james