Windows Live Writer
This is really cool.
Windows Live writer is a free tool from Microsoft that lets you post entries to your blog without having to log in to your blog provider website. It works more like Microsoft Word, with spell check as you type, easy formatting, and very easy insertion of pictures and tables. You can also put these cool drop shadows on your images!
If you’re a blogger, give it a shot. It is also available with the latest version of Windows Live Messenger. Works with Google Blogger too!
Shijaz Abdulla is a Partner Technology Advisor at Microsoft, helping their top tier partners build on their Microsoft practice. He is also a trusted advisor to medium enterprise customers in Qatar. He is a blogger, tech enthusiast, and a Microsoft evangelist.
Hmm, popup comment posting is less obviously Blogger. I’ll have to remember that…
Re Windows Live Writer, I remember trying that and being disgusted with it. All it would do is text and title; I don’t recall it supporting Blogger’s Labels function. I could be remembering incorrectly, but in any case I don’t think I particularly liked the program.
You might be talking about the Beta because the new version allows you to add tags to your Blogger post.
I found inserting images easier than doing it on the Blogger website. On blogger, the image is always placed on the top of your post no matter where your cursor is when you chose to insert the picture.
Yeah, I did try it a while ago. Perhaps I’ll give it another shot. Most of my subject matter requires heavy searching and linking on the Internet, though, so I’m not sure how much use blogging offline would be.
Inserting images where my cursor is, though, would be nice, even if I have acclimated myself to just dragging the HTML code to where I want it. (I insert images after the rest of the post is done, in placeholders I leave for the graphics.)
Where does WLW put images you insert? Will it upload to Picasa or something else? Can the drop-shadow be disabled?
WLW puts the pictures on the Live Filestore. Have a look at http://shijaz.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!FE180D5F38023F40!187.entry and see the location of the embedded picture.
Yes, the drop shadow can be disabled. You can also let WLW apply the formatting from ur blog template. There is also a picture formatting option called ‘photopaper’.
Regarding the move from Blogger to Live Spaces, I’m still in two minds
Oh, turn-off. Can’t have stuff on my Blogger blog accessing Microsoft’s servers. I’ve already got a bunch of uploaded images in Picasa Web Albums. It might still be useful for text-only posts…
No, if you’re posting to Blogger with WLW, your pictures will live on Google servers, and not on Microsoft’s. I was talking about Windows Live Spaces.
In that case, maybe I will try it again. Just to see what happens. If it works, cool! It probably doesn’t support Blogger in Draft features yet (stuff like scheduled posts, which are admittedly still a little buggy), but I can probably live with that.