Windows Live Writer Part 2

A while back I posted about Windows Live Writer and how I was going to be trying it out for a little while. Well a little while has passed and pretty much all of my posts have been done through this program since I installed it on my computer. I have learned basically how it works and have even updated my templates since installing it – so I think I have a pretty good feel of the program and am therefore able to make a proper review of it.
My favourite thing about it is that i can easily switch between my blogs. You see, normally when I create posts I do so on all three of my blogs and will post several scheduled ones as well. This is really easy with Windows Live Writer. I just click and boom I have switched from Great Abyss to Stephanie Beach Photography. If I start writing a post in the wrong blog I click again and it switches to the right one without losing any of the information.
Now onto the images. I had heard from other Photographic Bloggers that this program was really good for places images in your posts and enabling you to make them whatever size you wanted. Though this last part is correct (you are no longer bound by the three options that blogger gives you when uploading images), I find that I can no longer use my regular Photography format of an image with centred writing below it. I have since dealt with this as it is easier to size them and significantly easier and faster to upload them. You can simply drag them from a folder over to the post in Windows Live Writer and presto – the image is in the post.
The program also downloads your template and enables you to see exactly how the post will sit in it. You can tell if the words are breaking properly around your image, or if there is a line with just one silly little word on it. It keeps your font and styles too so you can see if that link looks right or if the italicized words are going to be published correctly.

I do most of my posting from home and have therefore not used the remote access features, but I am told they are there and you can use Windows Live Writer from work or a public space without much additional effort.
Things I don’t really like about this program is the recently posted list and the lack of a scheduled post list. Don’t get me wrong, you can do scheduled posts, but you can’t see the list of upcoming posts – so I am still going into blogger to see if posts are scheduled for x day or y time. The list of recently posted is quite short and for me, lists posts from all my blogs not just the one I am currently working in. The tags for you posts are still there and link to the ones in blogger, but they aren’t as fast to insert as you have to check each one you want instead of starting the word and then hitting enter like I used to in blogger.
Even with the aforementioned cons, I am continuing to use this program and would suggest to almost any of my blogger friends, that they try it out too.

If you are interested in using the program, first consider how you blog. If you insert a great deal of images or want to know exactly how the post is going to look before you publish it, then it may be worth your while. If your posts are more or less just words (ie. no images, videos, etc) then the normal blogger or wordpress modules may be good enough for you. Hope this has helped.