On what do you blog? - Desktop Publishing Software for Bloggers

If there’s one thing that makes blogging pleasurable except for the topic that you’re blogging about, it would probably be the blogging software or the publishing software. Well, at least, for me.

A blog-publishing software is a web-based or a desktop-standalone piece of software that helps you to write; And depending on the functionality, helps you to publish, tag, categorize, time-stamp, and do many more things wit your blog posts. Blog publishing software provides you with an alternative to blogging directly on the web-based interface of your blogging platform. If you want to take your blogging offline and have more freedom while writing what you love about, a blog-publishing software can come in handy.

You can specify your blog account details (Usernames, Password, URL) and you can integrate publishing software with your blog in a few seconds.

Blog publishing software can be both free and paid-for. But with so many amazing free software to go around, I never felt the need to try out a paid publishing software.

My software of choice: Windows Live Writer

Of all the software I’ve tried, Windows Live Writer stays ahead by a mile.

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easy to publish rich content to your blog.

You can’t beat the price. It’s absolutely FREE. And provides you with every function WordPress/Blogger/TypePad gives in it’s writing panel, and more.

• Categorize & Tag: Choose from existing categories/tags on your blog or create them without ever logging into the Admin Panel.
• Timestamp: You know what this is:)
• Spicing up your pictures: This is one of the main reasons I use Live Writer for. You can insert pictures, let Live Writer auto-upload them to your blog directories online, format their appearance without ever touching a block of HTML, and insert cool effects to make you pictures more likable. It’s the best I’ve seen in a free software.
• Media: You can easily insert videos/maps on your blog posts. If you have a video you want to insert that you haven’t already uploaded, you can upload it to Windows Live SoapBox and directly insert it to your blog post from there. If you already have a SoapBox account, you can insert any of the videos you have uploaded already.
• Plug-ins: You can download a number of plug-ins to Live Writer from the Windows Live website that will give you some amazing functionality. For an instance, I use the word count plug-in, to count and limit the number of words in my blog-posts and paragraphs to keep up with the formatting of my blog.
• Formatting: Live Writer gives you all the formatting functions you ever need. Lists, Block-quotes, you name it.
• Integration: Post you articles as drafts, time-stamped posts, published articles or edit you already published articles without ever logging into the admin panel of you blogging plat form.

If you’re interested, you can download the Windows Live Writer here for free.

Comes handy at times: ScribeFire

ScribeFire is an extension for the Mozilla FireFox Web browser that integrates with your browser to let you easily post to your blog: you can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.

ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates itself into the browser. It is not exactly “Desktop-Publishing”, because it attaches it self as a sub-window in your browser.

If you’re fact-checking one of you blog posts or researching for something online, ScribeFire can help you to do it without ever leaving your browser. In addition to that some bloggers actually prefer this software over any desktop-publishing software because of the convenience of blogging online. And I have to give it up for ScribeFire for having almost the same functionality as any other desktop publishing software.

One handy use of ScribeFire? Install it and keep it on your browser to make ‘notes’ about that great idea you got while surfing. Save it on your computer or publish them as drafts to your blog online so you can blog about it wherever and whenever you want.

Let the world pass you by: Dark Room

Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text.

If you want to experience complete bliss while blogging and do not want to be distracted by the blinking taskbar of your computer or the million and one buttons that appear in the screen, Dark Room is your bet.

The  biggest feature of Dark Room is that it is featurelessness. It has absolutely no features at all except for writing your content, saving it, opening it. You can’t publish anything directly and it has no integration of your blog. The reason why people use it is because of it’s simplicity. If you’re used to writing long, well-thought out articles that need a higher level of mental concentration, Dark Room can help you get there. After you write the content, what you can do is copy-paste it in a publishing software that let’s you format it and publish it online.

You can change the background color and the text color and run it full-screen so you see nothing but but you’re writing. Because of it’s nature, half of the people will absolutely hate it and half of the people will absolutely love it. (Much like this, according to Simon Cowell :D)

Conclusion

Some people tend to keep it simple and use nothing but the admin panel of their blogging platform, and some of us want more freedom, less-distraction or functionality.

The various desktop publishing software mentioned here have their own unique uses. I use them all from time to time but most of the time, I’m limited to Live Writer. As the bottom line, I can blog more effectively with the use of all the unique things that the software offer. But if I had to select one, you know what I would:)