Blog editors that come with many blog platforms can be small and cramped with everything fit onto a small portion of a web page. If you tend to write long entries or include a lot of media, a desktop tool might be more convenient. Recently Microsoft has updated its Windows Live Writer (WLR) blog editor. This is a free, downloadable editor with a full set of editing tools. It will also save drafts of your entries on your local system.
WLR can be configured for any blog platform, although it offers to work with the MS Live blogs first. When you add a blog, WLR will get the template of the blog and show you how your entry will appear when it is posted. This can be a very helpful way to format an entry.
WLR is especially good with photos. It will arrange photos in one of several configurations and display them in the entry. To do this it uploads the photos to Windows Live, so you need an account there. Here is an example of an entry using the photo album option in a Blogger blog. WLR also has links to Flickr to get more photos.
It’s easy to switch from WYSIWYG to code view mode. For anyone looking for the stability of a desktop blog editor that can handle multiple blogs on diverse platforms should definitely look into Windows Live Writer.
(WLR is part of the Windows Essentials bundle of free programs. You have the option of unchecking programs in the bundle that you may not need.)
