Tired of logging in to a web based interface to write a post or manage your existing posts? You can make your blogging experience easier by using Windows Live Writer. I highly recommend this tool to every blogger who uses a web-based interface to construct their posts.
Windows Live Writer is a blogging tool that allows you to create, post and manage a collection of posts in a way that I personally find much easier to use than any of the web-based interfaces you find on the many blogging platforms out in the wild.
With it, you can (by no means a complete list, just some of the ways that I use it):
- Create draft posts for those ideas that pop into your head to help create a full post later
- Create posts while not connected to the Internet
- Format your posts easily with all the functionality Windows Live Writer provides
- Insert media and apply formatting easily
- Create posts for multiple blogs easily
- Do everything you might need to do with a post!
I think the best feature in Windows Live Writer is the way it allows me to format image positioning, as well as media such as embedded video. You might have seen some of the code snippets I’ve injected into my posts as well.
It saves me an unaccountable amount of time, and I think you’ll find that it does the same for you.
If you want to get started using Windows Live Writer, here are some videos that will guide you through the process of installation and set up. I’ve also included a few videos that will help you get started using Windows Live Writer.
Getting Started
Basic Authoring
Pictures, Videos, Maps and Plug Ins
Open, Save, Publish and Help
You might also enjoy these related posts
- Links For New Readers and Bloggers I took a stroll through my archives and created a link list of all the posts that are geared toward increasing your knowledge in area important to web development and...
- Taking Scribefire for a test run I found an add-on for Firefox called Scribefire that I’m going to be testing out. I mentioned a few posts ago that I wanted to write more often, and to...
- Questions Beginning Bloggers Have About Blogging I recently had an old friend of mine from high school ask me a few questions about blogging. Beginning bloggers will appreciate this as well as the veterans; Seems she...
- BlogSpot Blog – Free Web Development Tools Doing any level of web development means having a variety of tools that aid your efforts. I have a collection of tools that I’ve either downloaded or paid for that...
- I’m not wasting my time blogging anymore, I’m going to micro-blog instead I’m trying to make blogging more worth my time. After blogging for a little over two years now, I can look back and see what the results of my efforts...
Getting started with a website is easy. Simply follow these steps to get started:
BJ@Charleston Sou... (1)
cam @ toy coupons (1)
Dave@Wheeled Holdall (1)
Sorry, if this sounds like a stupid question, but will Windows Live Writer let you post to any type of blogging platform like WordPress etc. or is it only for Windows Live?
Der @ 0 Percent Interest Credit Cards´s last blog ..Need a Credit Card in a Rush?
says:
You can use it with WordPress, Blogger and many others.
That’s great! Many thanks for that
Der @ 0 Percent Interest Credit Cards´s last blog ..Need a Credit Card in a Rush?
Awesome, man! I searched a while until I found a good video series like that. Thanks a lot!
Mr. PerfectDraft´s last blog ..Perfect Draft – Der König der Bierzapfanlage
says:
Cool deal! You’re welcome!
I love the idea of having a system that can really help us bloggers… we all know what horrible things happen when we try to post in WP straight from word.
gab @ canister vacuum´s last blog ..Why to choose canister vacuum?
i love using windows live writer!! it’s a GREAT tool,, but m facing a prb that i cant double space my text..!! can u help me with that matter?
says:
I could. What is your web site address?
here is the link:
http://ladyt.me/
says:
Are you familiar with editing your styles.css? If so, try adjusting the following:
.narrowcolumn .entry, .widecolumn .entry {
line-height:1.4em;
}
Try making that 2.4em and then take a look at your blog. You should see the space between each line increase. Simply raise that value to increase it more, or lessen it to bring the lines closer together.
Make sure you take a look at the entire site to be sure this change doesn’t affect anything else you didn’t intend.
Good luck!
thnx that was really helpful ^_^
says:
You are very welcome!
I had used Blogdesk prior to Windows Live, but had to change due to technical problems…it just locked up..got to hate that. I also heard that Word can be used as a blog editor.
Now you tell me, lol. I love Windows Live … I must admit I never used this feature of Live. As usual great information.
Thank you Wayne
Happy Easter everyone!
Garret
Windows live writer is a great tool. I use it for blogging. It gives me great tools for blogging.
This is a very convenient method.
Thanks for your submission to the Thirty-Second edition of the Blog Carnival: Blogging. Your post has been accepted and its http://thatsblog.com/?p=194
-ThatsBlog.com
You might try a test post. I know that I see small differences between what WLW shows me vs how my blog formats via the css, so what I’ve done is find a set pattern to follow (I use H3′s for section headers within the post for example, this post doesn’t have any, but prior posts do).
There is also a function in WLW that will download and attempt to format the screen in WLW to look like your blog. I’ve seen this work fine for Blogger, but for my blog (BlogEngine) it fails to format correctly.
So perhaps you are seeing the same?
Try a test post and check out the results. Use all the elements that you might in a post (H1, P, A, H2 etc…) and check out how it looks. You can even create a test blog, copy your template over to it, and test it there so your readers won’t notice it.
If all that fails, create a test case in a new blog and add me as an admin and I’ll try it out too.
Got to love debugging issues…
Hi Wayne.
Okay I’m trying WLW but how do you fix the spacing or does it correct itself once you publish? It’s all double spacing and stuff. Otherwise I liked everything else so thanks for posting about it.
i’ll have to give this a look. i heard of it, but never tried it. thanks wayne. now i have to go write myself a note to remember to look at it.
I’ve been a WLW user for some time, and have found it to be absolutely PERFECT for my blogging needs. Before WLW I used Word 2007, which handled most of my needs, but was a little sparce
My only issue with WLW to date has been that when setting up my blogsin WLW only DieselTekk.co.uk downloaded the template fully.
With Our5kids.blogspot.com the title field was always missing, requiring me to publish the post as scheduled for a future time, which allowed me time to log in to blogger and edit a title into the post manually – which is quite time consuming.
However, WLW updated iteself yesterday, and [b]whoosh[/b] the title field is there again and everything works swimmingly.
I highly recommend WLW.
Yea, after having my umpteenth post disappear mid-construction, I decided to use a desktop blog editor. I had used Blogdesk prior to Windows Live, but had to change due to technical problems…it just locked up..got to hate that. I also heard that Word can be used as a blog editor.
Anytime 1st Mike!
Thanks a bunch Mike Foster! No need for ‘a’ tags in the comments. Just type in the Url like http://livelife365.blogspot.com/2008/12/happy-holidays.html and my software will make that a link.
Cheers!
Hope and peace for this holiday season and for a fantastic 2009!
peace,
mike
livelife365
Happy Holidays!
Wayne,
I will check out WLW. I have no allegiance to ScribeFire.
Your are right the options available could drive you crazy! I do appreciate your help and suggestions.
Mike
I don’t think I’d be blogging if I didn’t have this tool. I don’t want to use a web page to author content at all, I don’t like it. It’s slow and cumbersome. I can’t agree more with you Kathy.
Well Mike, ScribeFire is pretty popular as I understand it, and quite honestly, I haven’t checked it out. But if memory serves me well, ScribeFire embeds itself into FF and you would open FF to edit posts and what not. Windows Live Writer is a stand-alone application, much like Word is to Office. That would be a major difference right there. I could guess that WLW has more features, especially with the upcoming version 2 release.
I’d have to play around with ScribeFire a little to see more differences I suspect. It’s not easy keeping up with every tool out there, lol.
However, there’s no reason why you couldn’t check out WLW too.
Hi Wayne,
Happy Holidays!
Thanks for the info!
I just started using ScribeFire (firefox add on) this last week.
This looks like the same type program. Do you know of any differences that I should be aware of?
Thanks, Mike
Live Writer is a godsend for me. I’m glad someone turned me onto it. The formatting features are what make it so much better than my WordPress built-in editor. It’s very much like composing posts in Word. All the features and flexibility of a word processor. Best thing since sliced bread!