How to Setup Windows Live Writer
I hope my previous post about Windows Live Writer has convinced you to switch to this offline blog post editor. It’s my MOST important tool in blogging and has been truly helpful in making me want to write more.
Since I’ve been vocal about how much I love WLW, people have asked me to write a guide on how to set it up. I’ve put that off long enough so here’s a tutorial on how to setup Windows Live Writer for your blogging needs. This is part 2 of my series of posts on WLW, by the way. Stay tuned for the rest. 🙂
Requirements:
- WLW, obviously, only works for Windows operating systems (XP, 7 and Vista).
- A WordPress or Blogger blog. At least this tutorial is a guide for both platforms.
- An internet connection is needed for the initial setup. After which, you can start writing offline. 🙂
- Since WLW isn’t really a memory-hogging program, you don’t need a kick-ass computer to install and use it. 🙂
- If you are a WordPress user, make sure you have enabled XML-RPC publishing in your settings. Once logged in on your WordPress blog, go to Settings –> Writing –> Scroll down to Remote Publishing and then check “Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols.” as shown below:
DOWNLOAD NOW!
Below are the download links again for Windows Live Writer.
Step #1:
On your initial setup, you’ll be asked to add your first blog account:
For Blogger and WordPress users, select the third option – Other blog service – then click on Next.
Step #2:
On the next window, you’ll be asked for your login information to your blog. Here’s an example for my Internet Cafe Blog.
Once done, click on Next and wait for WLW to download your blog’s theme.
Step #2-a:
During step 2, you might be asked by WLW to let it publish a temporary post on your blog just so it could detect your theme properly.
It’ll be automatically deleted so no need to worry. However, there were instances wherein the temporary posts were included in my RSS blog feeds before. For me, though, it’s all good.
WLW will continue downloading your blog’s theme elements.
Step #3:
Once all the elements are done downloading, you should get this screen prompting you to enter a blog nickname.
This is for your WLW installation on your computer only so name it all you want. 🙂
THAT’S IT! Easy, eh? Now, as I’ve mentioned in my previous post, you can add multiple blog accounts to WLW. Here’s how:
How to Add Multiple Blogs to Windows Live Writer
In WLW, click on Tools on the upper part of the window, then click on Accounts.
You will then be prompted with the list of blogs already added to WLW. As you can see, I’ve got all my blogs added already. 😀
Click on the Add button and you should be prompted with the same window as in Step 1. Just follow the same procedure and that’s it! 🙂
And, again, you can switch to any of your blogs just as easily:
New Theme? No Problem!
If in case you change your blog’s theme, then, you must update your WLW theme for that too.
You can do this either by going through the Tools –> Accounts –> Edit button…
Or by activating the blog you need to update through the upper right shortcut menu and clicking on Edit Blog Settings.
Either way, they’ll give you this screen:
As you can see, in this window, you can change different settings for your blog. But, let’s focus on updating your theme.
Click on Editing on the left menu. Then, click on the Refresh Theme button.
Wait for WLW to update your theme. You might be prompted again with the same question as in Step 2-a if you’d like to publish a temporary post. I say go for it! 😀
After the whole downloading of the new theme, just click on Ok to close the Edit Blog Settings window. WLW will then update the old look of your blog so you can start writing again using your new theme’s elements. 🙂
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Easy, right? My next post will be about plugins and then errors that you’d encounter with Windows Live Writer. I have managed to troubleshoot some of the issues I’ve experienced with this tool so I’ll be sharing it with you the solutions on my next posts. The issues are pretty easy to resolve and won’t need any mad skills like when you need any computer or motor home repair. There’ll be 2 more posts (plugins and errors), but if you have any questions, feel free to comment and ask away. I’ll try to answer your questions ASAP. 🙂
Happy blogging! 🙂
