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>> Microsoft Word. It's not just for book authors and college students any more, now it's for bloggers too. I'm Molly Wood from CNET TV, and in this edition of Insider Secrets I'll show you how to compose and publish a blog post from Word 2007.
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Blogging may be fun, easy, and profitable sometimes, but composing a masterpiece on a web page can be a terrifying experience. One little hiccup and the whole thing is lost. Composing in Word is nice and safe, and it's easier to do when you're offline. So with that in mind, one of Word 2007's fancy new features is the ability to quickly compose a blog post in Word and then publish it to a compatible blog service. All right, let me show you how it's done. First you launch Microsoft Word, and you click the Office button up here in the left side. Now click new, in the menu that pops up choose blog post. Now click create. That is redundant I know. Now if you've already composed a post and you just want to publish it, just click that Office button, choose publish, and then choose blog. The steps are pretty much the same after that. Now the first thing you'll have to do is register and then sign in to your blog. Click register now, and choose your blog provider from this drop down list here. Now Word is specifically compatible with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services, and Community Server. But that doesn't mean you're out of luck if you use another service, it's just a tiny bit harder. In this case when you register choose other, and then you'll be promted to choose your blog's API, either Adam or Meta web blog, and your blog post URL. Now this information should be available from your blog provider if you don't know it. Okay. Once you've registered your blog, you're ready to compose your post. The template includes a field for the post title, so enter that, and if your blog provider supports categories, you can actually click insert category under the blog post menu ribbon and select the appropriate category. Now just start typing. You'll have access to all the normal formatting and styles and things that you'd have in a normal Word document, plus you'll get all your little auto correct tools if you like that kind of thing, and your spell check and other Word gadgets that you just might like. Now if you want to add links and you don't know the HTML code, just click the insert tab in the navigation ribbon here, and choose hyperlink. You'll see this popup that prompts you to add the text you want linked, like click here to watch CNET TV. And then at the bottom of the dialog, underneath all the folder stuff, you can paste in the URL that you want to link to. Make sure you've selected existing file or web page in the upper left corner. Now this is a little clunkier than the hyperlink menu in WordPress, but that's because it's the same menu that you use across Microsoft Word. Me? I suggest you learn the HREF tag, it's a whole lot faster. As with any blog service, you can also add a picture, and it's actually a little easier I think than uploading pictures to your blog can be. You just click the insert option again and choose picture, find the photo you want, insert it, and you'll see this menu that actually only appears when you have a photo selected. Here you can resize the photo, choose some text wrapping, apply some effects, all kinds of things. Now when you're done composing, just click publish in the blog post menu, or publish as draft if you want to review it in the blog pane. Word will create all the necessary HTML, your post'll show up just like normal.
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And there you have it. You will never lose a brilliant blog post to the web again. Your kitty cats will thank you. For Insider Secrets at CNET TV.com, I'm Molly Wood.
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