Windows Live Writer– Managing Images

	Contents Introduction Basic Image Control Changing sizes Default Image Sizes Other Options Conclusion My Links Over to You

Introduction

Windows Live Writer is a very useful tool for bloggers.  It allows you to write blogs off-line in a cut-down Word environment.  You can send your work directly to your blog, save the work to draft or you can save your work on your computer’s disk.

The interface is superior to that of the WordPress Add Post and Edit Post features.  It allows formatting, such as bold, underline and italic; change font face, font size, font colour; set the alignment of text, set header styles; add hyperlinks, images and media;  a great spell checker, word counter and much more.  One of its great features is the added facilities for handling images.

First    Click your mouse    in the position you would like to insert the image. 

Hint:  I usually size an compress my image with my trusty Fireworks graphics package before loading it into Live Writer or WordPress editors.

Fireworks allows me to precisely control the image size and then to prepare it for the web by reducing its loading time.

To insert an image there are two alternatives:

On the Home Menu

     Click Picture   on the right hand – Insert section of the menu

          or on the   Insert menu   Click  Picture

Select Option from

          From your computer,  From the web,  Create online album, Add online album 
                      (For this tutorial I’ll describe the ‘From your computer’ option).

From your computer

Prompts you to find the image from your computer’s disk drive.  When you select an image it will be displayed in the Live Writer document. So below is the image of my camper van. 

Click on the image to activate the Picture Tools

You can change the size of the image by entering sizes in pixels in the width and height sections.  Click the   Lock aspect ratio  if you want to adjust both values.

Crop  lets you crop, cut away a section of the image.

Adjust the clear section by dragging the controls on the side and then clicking   OK   to select. 

One of the most useful features  of the Picture Tools is the fact you can set up three default sizes.  Click  the little square with the arrows in the size box  and click  Set default sizes

You can set the default sizes, (in pixels), for small, medium and large.  You can also select the Original size of the image. This is really useful for standardising your layouts.  

You have quite a lot of other options

• Picture borders – you have a choice of bine different borders
• Picture effects – including changing the colour, sharpening, blurring and embossing
• Changing the Contrast and Brightness
• Add a Watermark
• Change Alignment – centre – no text, left, right and centre with text
• Add margins – top, bottom, left, right – set in pixels

It is really worthwhile getting familiar with Live Writer’s image management system.  I’ve found it very useful to have set image sizes in many of my blogs.  For example for this blog I have a header image of most posts of 300 x 300 pixels.  This allows me to set up the post’s contents side by side.  For other images I use a maximum width of 550 pixels to fit on the page.  

Blog Basics:  Overview of Live Writer, (including where to download).

Blog Basics:  Live Writer Plugin – Templates, (How to add templates and snip-its of text to Live Writer). To be written tomorrow.

Do you use Live Writer?  Do you use any other text editor for your blogs?  Have you any other advice on blogging, productivity.