The New Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer is desktop application allows you to compose and post to your blog whether it’s Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, Radio Userland, or one of many others.  Live Writer offers a  WYSIWYG editor, easy photo insertion, & the ability to add Windows Live Local maps into a blog post. Just recently, a new version of Live Writer was released, known as Live Writer Beta 2. This new version offers many new features, including the following:

• Inline spell checking
• Table editing
• Ability to add categories
• Page authoring for WordPress and TypePad
• Support for excerpts and extended entries
• Improved hyperlinking and image insertion
• Paste Special
• SharePoint 2007 support
• New APIs enabling custom extensions by weblog providers
• Automatic synchronization of local and online edits (yay - offline blogging!)
• Integration with Windows Live Gallery
• Support for Blogger Labels
• New look and feel (very Vista-like)
• Available in 6 languages
• Improved accessibility and keyboard support
• Many other frequently requested enhancements

Since I blog with TypePad, I was happy to notice that TypePad used Live Writer’s "Provider Customization API" to offer additional service-specific features within the Writer UI. TypePad bloggers can use the software to set categories, excerpts, and extended entries directly into Windows Live Writer - no more clicking "publish" in Windows Live Writer, then clicking over to TypePad to add that information separately. TypePad pages are also supported in the new version. With all the new features, it is certainly worth the upgrade to the new version, and if you’ve never tried Live Writer, now is a great time to give it a shot.