I am was drafting another post on this blog and a new post on my Sunday School Director blog when I asked myself, is there an easy way to post an article to your blog? The reason I asked is because my (just new) process on creating an article is to (1)create a draft on notepad (yeah, that’s what I use) or word, (2) go to my sites dashboard, click on new post, enter the title, then paste the contents, (3) add any images that I need, (4) hit the preview button the check if the layout is okay,(5) make layout changes (6) and if everything looks fine, hit the publish button. The problems I experience here is that, first and foremost, copy-pasting from word isn’t recommended on websites (word creates additional tags that are actually included in the copy, and though there is a way to properly paste the content, I usually forget it). Second I drafting, lay outing, previewing is too separated. Third, the post editor of wordpress is not WYSIWYG. Meaning what you enter there isn’t how it will look on the actual page. That means I have to do a frequent preview of the site just to make sure that everything is fine. And it doesn’t always work out right (like what happened to my last post where the image went in between the word “So” and “when” of the second sentence. That post is actually ugly on the email feed and RSS.

Some good points I see in Windows Live Writer

• WYSIWYG – I’ve heard and read a lot of complain about this when using WordPress as a platform for a blog or website. And it is true and frustrating most of the time (like what I’ve said earlier). With WLW, you are (or feels like) you are writing directly in to your website’s front end. It captures your theme so while you are writing, the fonts, font size, colors, spacing and even the area of the article area (from the first letter to the last letter of the line) are exactly the same as what will appear when you publish your article (now, that is WYSIWYG). Disclaimer – it is not 100% but it’s as close as it is.
• Faster preview – there are three tabs, the edit tab where you type in your article and everything. Then there is source tab where you can see the source (or enter any codes that can only be entered via the source) and there is the Preview tab where you can actually see “your whole website” as if you are viewing it from a web browser. Well, as I’ve said also, it is not 100% so it may vary (depending also on the browser and operating system you are using.
• Lot’s more to discover…

Windows Live Writer is free for Windows 7 (and yes, I am using Windows 7 and not Linux). This is my first post using this software so there are still a lot of things I need to discover. But as of now, everything is good for me.

NOTE: This is an article and at the same time a trial post using WLW, so if anything isn’t rendering as it should be, please forgive me and I’ll take it as a lesson.

So, for those who are saying that wordpress doesn’t have a “WYSIWYG”, then better check this out.

Disclaimer: I use Windows 7 and Windows Live Writer and this is NOT a paid post nor is a comprehensive review.