Using Writely As Your Blog Editor
Author: Danny Wirken

Internet giant Google has acquired Writely, an online web
processor that also functions as a blog editor. Writely fits
perfectly in Google's grand quest to host the world's content
and adds innovative and easy to use program to Google's
browser-based world of blogging. Writely makes it easy for
users by allowing access from anywhere, anytime on any
computer. Writely allows a user to write from home or office
while using somebody else's computer.

Writely is built utilizing AJAX, Asynchronous Javascript and
XML. This is a programming model supported by most browsers in
use today. By using AJAX, earlier limitations of browsers such
as the need to wait for pages to refresh and the absence of
drag and drop features were eliminated.

For a fairly new product, Writely boasts of an amazing array of
advanced features. First on the list is its very simple WYSIWYG
(what you see is what you get) simple interface. You can play
around with the fonts, sizes, colors, styles and even add
pictures without any effort. Writers will feel at home with the
interface. You can create documents or upload them from most
file formats. You can keep documents online and e-mail them
from anywhere. You can edit a document and view the HTML
version of the document as a web page. You can even tag or star
your documents. You can even see at a glance who last edited a
document.

You can publish the documents you created in Writely in the
Internet or only to a few select people of your choice. You
have complete control who can see your documents. Once you
publish a document, you can make changes and it will not show
up until you re-publish the document. While editing is done in
HTML, Writely can convert documents from PDF, RDF or Word
format. You can save these documents online or to your
computer.

Writely allows multiple authors to work on a document via the
Internet. In fact, its greatest come on is in its collaboration
feature, the live document sharing. Writely is aptly described
as a web-based collaborative document editor. To share a
document, you simply log into the interface. Type in the e-mail
addresses of the people you want to share the document with and
then send them an e-mail message. They will then have access to
the shared document via their own Writely menu once they sign
in. Everyone can then edit the document in real time. An
indicator at the bottom of the screen will display who else is
looking at it too. You know who edits what and when. You can
instantly see the changes your fellow collaborators made and
when they made them by viewing the revision history. You can
easily go back to a previous revision and compare two versions.
It is a completely easy process. What is amazing is that
multiple collaborators are working on a document in real time
from different locations.

Writely can also be used as a blog editor. Writely provides a
fairly advance text editor from which you can post your blog.
You can create a document by clicking the "New" button. You can
also upload a document from your computer or send documents by
e-mail. To post a document to your blog, click on the active
document. It will open in a new window. You can then see a
"Blog" tab. Just click the "Blog" tab and a preview of how your
document will appear when posted will be displayed. You can make
the necessary changes. Configure the "Blog Site Settings"
properly. You can tweak the previous templates and once you are
ready to publish, just click the "Post to Blog" button. Then
click "Done" and now you ready to check your blog.

You can also archive your posts. If you want to update or
remove a post, there are buttons on the "Blog" tab to perform
that function. You can use Writely to manage your posts. You
can edit or re-publish a blog post from within Writely. You can
post using categories by simply tagging the post in Writely and
the tags will be sent as your blog categories.

Writely as a blog editor has a way of publishing to your blog
with just one or two clicks from your browser. Writely can also
manage multiple blogs from one place. If, for example, you are
publishing fifteen blog posts each week, Writely will allow you
to set them up in such a way that you can blog to all of them
without having to log into the back end of the blogs. With
Writely, you can have multiple blog platforms. If you use
WordPress, MovableType or TypePad blogging software, you can
still edit you blogs all from one spot. This saves time and
accelerates your blogging. You can also set up each blog
differently with its own defaults and settings.

Writely allows you to freely add and configure images. You can
choose to drag and drop images into the editor. You can even
resize them, rename them, etc. just like you would a Word
document. While it is true that blogging softwares have this
feature, a blog editor like Writely is more functional. Again
Writely has a WYSIWYG interface. Writely is useful for blog
posts since it generates HTML. With Writely, you can blog
offline. This is very convenient especially if you are in an
area not covered by broadband connection. You can continue
blogging and when you reach a WiFi area then you can publish
the blog posts. You do not have to go to such lengths as typing
the posts in a text file, copying them across and then
publishing them.

With Writely, you have a copy of your posts on your desktop for
back-up or future references. There will be times when you need
to go over some old posts. Writely has a feature that will scan
old posts to help you find what you are looking for. Writely
also has a spell checker that checks the spelling of a word as
you type it. This is a very handy feature. With Writely, you
can tag your posts. There is also a whole range of automated
features that makes blogging seems effortless.

As a whole, Writely allows for easier blogging. The entire
web-based word processor is clean, simple, functional and
navigation- friendly. Writely supports posting to blog sites as
well as to any blog that uses the Blogger, MetaBlog or
MovableType blogging platform. Writely can be an essential part
of the blogging process especially for bloggers who are managing
multiple blogs.


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