Blogging made simple by free 'Windows Live Writer' program

If you are the owner of a blog, or just an author who is only concerned about writing the stuff, Windows Live Writer is one program that helps you greatly. You may be in a team of Bloggers in which one is the editor who looks after the content as well as the formatting (bells & whistles) while you may be the one mostly concerned with 'content' which is the king in blog promotion.

While we need to acknowledge that generally all blogging services like ‘Blogger’, ‘Wordpress’, ‘Typepad’ do provide almost all options needed to create a nice blog post, they aren’t very easy for everyone, particularly to those of older generations who weren’t using computers during their job days.

Particularly when a website or a blog employs more than one person to do the blogging job, the authors may not be computer literates to an extent that they can play with HTML code, widgets, tweaking the CSS, etc.

In that scenario, Windows Live Writer greatly helps those who want to simplify their life while publishing to their blogs.

What is Windows Live Writer?

Windows Live Writer is a part of a package of free software provided by software giant Microsoft to all. This is called ‘Windows Live Essentials’ which along with Windows Live writer contains other useful programs such as Movie Maker, Photo Gallery and Mail client.

Having these programs installed on your computer helps you to organize and edit photos and videos, manage email, create blog posts, and keep your files in sync. The edition of Windows Essentials you can download depends on which version of Windows you're running on your computer.

Installing Windows Live Writer as a part of Windows Essentials

Windows Essentials can be downloaded from this official Microsoft link: Download Windows Live Essentials

If you don’t want other programs like ‘OneDrive’ and ‘Mail’ installed on your PC, there are also options to choose only the Writer to be installed.

Once you install these programs, you are ready to use Live Writer for Blogging!

Linking Live Writer to your Blog

You need to have a Blog already available to do this. Or else, you have create your blog first before trying to use Live Writer. For starters, Blogger is the best choice with no cost at all. Many professional bloggers however use WordPress for the customization it offers. At the end, the blogging platform matters little compared to the content you generate by blogging.

While it is recommended to create a Blog of your desired choice and platform, Live Writer will only prompt you to create a ‘WordPress’ blog. Maybe if you are a Google fan, you might wish to have a ‘Blogger blog’. Or a ‘TypePad’ blog. Choice is yours.

Once your blog is ready, you can link that to Live Writer in this way.

• For a new blog to be created, click on ‘Add Blog account’. Then follow the instructions.
• Or else if you already have a blog, click on ‘Add blog account’ and then follow the steps to set up the required blog in Writer.

How to publish an article on Blog using Writer?

Type a title of your article/post where it says “Enter a post title”.

In the large window below, you can add your ‘story’ typing in as many lines or paragraphs as you want. If you want to format the text, use the commands in the ribbon.

You can add photos directly from your PC or from other locations on web if you are familiar with copying the URLs where those pictures are located. They can be the stuff in your ‘OneDrive’ folders too for which you have given ‘Public’ permissions to watch online. Similarly you can add videos which are uploaded to video sevices such as ‘Youtube’, ‘Dailymotion’, ‘Metacafe’, etc.

For either photos or videos, you just need to find the link (URL at the bottom of the photo or video) or by copying it from the address bar in a browser, then the Writer will create the preview for you automatically. This may not be so easy if you are not using the Writer.

You can also Bing maps inside your post. Finalise in your mind the actual location you want to use from Bing Maps, and then click on Insert tab, then click Map. In the find location box, type an address or location and then press ‘Enter’ to get it done. You can also check other instructions you would like insert the kind of map.

Happy Blogging!