Windows Live Writer…have you tried it?

Today I am doing my post with Window Live Writer. Windows Live Writer interfaces with your blog and allows you create and publish your post without working within the blog itself. I have found it to be especially helpful since I manage and write on multiple blogs.

Here are several of the features I found useful:

• It can be shared on many blog services: Blogger, Typepad, Live Write and Wordpress are just a few
• Pictures can easily be resized on screen by drag and drop or by entering the number of pixels
• Pictures can also have a drop shadow inserted on the photo
• Pictures (this one is my fav), can also be watermarked and you can indicate where you would like the watermark to be and how large (See the example on the photo above)
• Hyperlinks can also be inserted to any text or picture
• Other great features include but are not limited to adding a photo albumin, inserting a table, creating a map, insertion of Technorati tags, and adding video. There are also several other plug-ins that can be inserted right into the post.
• As you create a post as I am doing now, I actually see the background of my blog even though I am using Live Writer…pretty cool…and the WSIWYG editor makes it very easy..when you are done, just hit publish

Here is what I found to be very slightly disappointing:

• I have over 300 fonts, however, if I use a font which is I have on my computer, you will see the font that has been designated on my blog as the default unless you have the exact same font I do that I have used in writing the entry
• I could not seem to be able to create a hyperlink for email, so after making several entries on another blog, I had to go into the blog itself and add the email hyperlinks through Blogger
• I did have a very small problem with one word. It appeared to be the correct size as I typed, but when it was published it changed to about three times the original size

Overall, I love it! The biggest benefit to me was the built in photo editing and watermark ability. Here’s another fabulous benefit…it’s free! Yep, totally F R E E.

Here’s the link to download: Windows Live Writer. If you do download, be sure to disable any firewall or antivirus if it does not download correctly the first time.