The Watered Soul

Finding Refreshment in the Word

Blogging With Windows Live Writer

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Since discovering Microsoft’s free offline blogging editor, Windows Live Writer has become my favorite blogging tool. I have used it in conjunction with both blogger and WordPress.

Seven Reasons Why I’m in Love

  1. Downloadable online for free and it’s easy to set-up.
  2. The User Interface is similar to other Microsoft products, which makes it a snap composing blog posts. And I find it much easier than using my blogging platform post composer.
  3. I can do the actually writing of my posts offline and schedule when I want them to be posted.
  4. I can easily see a preview of my post without going online first. I can see it exactly how it will look on my blog because it allows you to download your blog theme.
  5. Easy to insert pictures or videos into my post.
  6. It can be enhanced with various plug-ins like Amazon Book Linker and Zemanta .
  7. If you have multiple blogs, it can be used to write posts for each of them.

If you have used Windows Live Writer before I would love to hear about your experience with it. If not why not give this blogging tool a try by downloading Windows Live Writer from Microsoft website.

[simple_series title=”A-Z Challenge 2012″]

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Comments

  2. Carole in the UK says

    Thank you so much for this information Wanda, it will be a real boon for me.
    I had heard of Microsoft’s free offline blogging editor, but did not find the
    time to read up on how to use it.
    Writing my blog posts offline will be a great advantage, as it will stop me
    becoming distracted with other online info.
    I will most certainly look into using it.
    Bless you. 🙂

  3. ella says

    Thank you Wanda! I had not heard of this…I know where have I been! In the attic going through
    memories and holiday decorations, lol. I love reading your take on this…sounds wonderful!
    W is for Wonderful Wanda ;D

  9. Peggy Duncan says

    Hey Wanda, You’re spot on about Windows Live Writer. It makes blogging absolutely painless. So much I like about this. I especially love how I can connect my YouTube channel to it and make changes to pictures and save that as my default.

    I’ve created a video tutorial series that teaches this software step by step. Here is some info and the first lesson is here for free. http://www.thedbi.com/training/windows-live-writer/

    This is my new membership Website…still working on it, but the WLW course is ready,

  11. Courtney Palmer says

    Thanks for sharing how to use it. Been hearing about it from my blogger friends but haven’t really tried it myself. I’ll check it out. 🙂

  12. kmote says

    Live Writer may be discontinued soon! Scott Lovegrove has posted an online petition to “Save Windows Live Writer”. [http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/dontkillwlw] Please sign it and spread the word!

  13. Dollie says

    I tried this once but after reading your post I will go and try it again. I did not take the time to explore it enough. Thanks for the very informing post.

    • Wanda says

      Hi Dollie, hope you find the second look worthwhile. WLW is my absolute favorite blogging tool I have discovered.

  14. Angel Electrico says

    Well I must say this is the first article I read about WLW that I can´t debate with. I got to the task to build my own java based alternative to WLW. In comparison to your point of view

    -It is also free and downloadable (it is open source actually).
    -The interface kind of stands on its own though it will be familiar to any user.
    -I never thought on having an scheduler and also I have not seen that functionality on the writer. Though it might be cool to have.
    – I thought about the preview feature but the fact was that it involved too much work for me to do and so little benefits, this is because it is not editable HTML what you see on the feature so this can be mimic be posting as a draft. Nevertheless I kind of admit it is a beautiful feature.
    – About the plug ins I already have like 30 which is not anyway near the 200 plugins WLW has, but I’m just starting to market Girasol Editor so hopefully I will earn some open source momentum.
    -The multiple blogs functionality is a most have and it is implemented in Girasol Editor.

    I have some features that are not included in WLW like having sidebars with you old publication files and posts, that makes it really easy to kink back to your old content from your new one. Please give it a try, here is the product page: http://www.psiqueware.com/2012/09/girasol-editor-eng.html

    Thank you!

    • Wanda says

      Hi Angel, I must say WLW is my favorite blog writing tool. I hadn’t heard of the giarasol editor but I’ll have to check it when I get some time. Although I think it might be hard to stand up to WLW. Yet you’re right Microsoft may eliminate the writer as well. Things I come to love seem to be disappearing lately like Google Reader.

      • Angel Electrico says

        Hi Wanda, thank you for your reply. Hey please let me know your thoughts about Girasol Editor. I have a question about the scheduler, do you have to start wlw for your posts to be sent? What I already have is the posibility to have local drafts.

          • Wanda says

            I really don’t use a lot of plugins with WLW, although there are many available. The main one’s I used is the Amazon book link feature and All in One SEO. I tried the snap a website image but couldn’t get it to work in the past.

        • Wanda says

          There is place in WLW where you can tell it what date you would like to schedule the post. So after you write it and you hit publish and it gets sent to your blog with the publish date you selected.