Unarguably, Microsoft Windows Live Writer is the best tool I’ve used for offline blogging. It has a simple and user friendly interface, supports images, tables, maps and video. Further it has the ability to enhance features by adding plug-in. The generated HTML code is also clean and XHTML valid. Some tips for using it.
Check your blog’s capabilities
Live Writer has a very useful option to check your blog’s capabilities.
From the menu, select Blog -> Edit blog settings and select Accounts (you might need to select your blog firs from the Blogs menu, if you’re managing multiple blog accounts). Then click on the View capabilities link.
Depending on the blog, some options may not be available and some of the tips may not be applicable. But if you’ve a WordPress blog, most of the options will be available.
Enable the auto save option
By default this feature is disabled. Enable this and even if there is a system crash you can recover the content (just like MS Word).
From the menu, select Tools -> Options select Editing and enable the option
Enable the auto remind option for titles, category and tags
Enable this option so that you won’t publish an article accidentally without entering titles or selecting category.
From the menu, select Tools -> Options select Preferences and enable the options
Enable the check spelling before publishing option
It is recommended to have spelling check enabled before publishing your content. This will ensure that there is no accidental spelling mistakes.
From the menu, select Tools -> Options select Spelling and enable the option
Can copy paste Video embed code directly to the editor
You don’t need to go to source code view or select Video insert option to embed a video. You can directly copy paste the embed code in the GUI editor. It is smart enough to understand the clipboard content.
Can copy paste images from clipboard
Images can be added from clipboard. For e.g.: you can use, the Windows snipping tool to capture part of screen and directly paste it to the editor – no need to save as a file (If you want better control over file names, it is recommended to save the image first as a file)
Make sure XHTML is selected
Make sure, XHTML mode is selected for better code generation.
From the menu, select Blogs -> Edit blog settings and select Advanced
Pictures can be uploaded to a specific folder or another server using FTP
Images can be uploaded to the blog in normal way (For e.g.: in WordPress, it will be organized by year and month) or you can upload it to another or same server using FTP. This way you can keep all your images in the same folder. (Not recommended for WordPress as it organizes the images in a good way)
From the menu, select Blogs -> Edit blog settings and select Pictures
Can save the post as a draft in blog and it can be accessed from anywhere
If you’ve drafted a post in one computer and want to continue editing in another computer, instead of saving the post as a local draft you can save the post as a draft in the blog. In this way, you can access this draft from anywhere.
Add ping servers
You can add ping servers so that whenever you publish a post, these servers will be notified and can re-index your blog.
From the menu, select Tools -> Options -> Ping Servers and enable the option
Following is a good collection of ping servers. Copy and paste to the text area.
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
Make good use of the split post functionality
Split post functionality is useful if you don’t want to show the full post content in home page. You can split the post and only the first part will be shown in home page (This is different from excerpt). Please note that, this may not be supported in all blogs.
After the desired portion of content, click on the split post icon in toolbar.
Make good use of the Auto Linking feature
Live Writer has a good option to insert links automatically to certain words and phrases. For e.g.: if you want to link to the YouTube video site automatically when you write YouTube, it can be set in the Auto Linking. It is better to limit it to happen only for the first occurrence.
Make good use of the Paste Special feature
If you’ve copy pasted contents from MS Word, you might’ve seen that it produces lots of inline style tags which may affect the layout of your blog or cause HTML validation errors.
Live Writer has a nice feature to avoid this – Paste Special. Using this, we can either remove all tags or just remove special tags.
After copying the content, from the menu, select Edit -> Paste special (Ctrl+Shift +V)
Change default image sizes and image style to match your blog
Live Writer supports automatic resizing and styling of images. The image border option is an excellent feature. It has support for shadow, rounded corners, reflection etc. You can add some effects like Sepia, black & white etc or adjust brightness and contrast. A copyright watermark can also be added.
For image resize you can set 3 options. You can change this according to your blog. For e.g.: set the size of “small” to the thumbnail size in your blog, “medium” to the full width of the main content area.
Select the image and you’ll get the image options in right sidebar.
Enhance features with Plug-in
One good feature of Live Writer is the ability to support plugins. The functionality can always be expanded with plug-ins. There are already some good plugins available (I will do a separate post on plugins).
Some useful shortcuts
Publish to blog – ctrl + shift + P
Paste special – ctrl + shift + V
Categories - ctrl + shift + C
Edit view – F11
Preview - F12
Source view - Shift + F11
Toggle edit using theme – ctrl + F11
Insert hyperlink – ctrl + K
Insert image - ctrl + L
Check spelling – F7
