Windows Live Writer – Best Desktop Blogging Client For Offline Blogging

A desktop blogging client is a software which help you write blog posts from your desktop without logging into your blogs admin section. They normally have better WYSIWYG editors than those online post editors among  and support blogging to multiple blogs. Also most desktop blogging client works offline so that you can write posts anytime from anywhere and you will need Internet connection only at the time of posting. Sounds great piece of software, isn’t it?

Like other useful software categories, you have many desktop blogging client to choose from. But on Windows, Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer dominates by its largest list of features and attractive price tag of $FREE.

Windows Live Writer is by any standard the best desktop blogging client ever made, and its much better than most paid alternatives. I paid $20 for ecto on Mac but its not even close to Windows Live Writer.

Anyway for Windows user, below is list of attractive features Windows Live Writer offers…

• Supports Most Blog Providers: WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, Windows Live Spaces, TypePad, Movable Type, and many others. Automatic blog configuration makes setting-up blog easy.
• Post to multiple blogs: Themes are automatically detected for each blog. Switching between blogs requires just two clicks.
• WYSIWYG Editor: While copy-pasting something from web, formatting is preserved. Also the editor generates valid markups by auto-removing inline CSS most web-pages add unnecessarily.
• Spell checker: Inline spell checker helps you polish your text. Remove common spelling mistakes and remember your spelling suggestions.
• Easy Hyperlinking: You can hyperlink to old posts easily. Also set link to open in new window or mark it NOFOLLOW.
• Category & Tags: if your blog supports category and/or tags like WordPress, they will be integrated automatically. Support for add/edit is there, also preserve hierarchy if any.
• Photo Publishing: Add photos to your blog post without uploading them first. Supports advance features like image resizing, transitional effects, shadowing, bordering, etc. Also provide field for ALT attribute value, good for SEO.
• Web Preview Feature: One step ahead, it shows how your blog post will look on final website.
• Drafts & Scheduling: You can store unlimited drafts locally or post them to server. You can also set a blog post to publish later or post old draft with current timestamp.
• Maps & Direction: Built-in integration with Live Maps. Adding Google maps is also easy.
• Plugins: Using plug-ins you can add more rich content to your blog like flickr photos, emoticons and quotes of the day. I heavily use Code Snippet plugin to publish source code with formatting.

So if you are seriously into blogging, enjoy Windows Live Writer!

Links: Windows Live Writer (Requires .NET Framework)

(Author’s note: This week I am planning to write more on making blogging task easier. If you have any question about anything related to blogging, please ask via comments below. I will try to answer them all.)