One of the reasons I resisted blogging for so long was my dislike of writing online. I know that I could compose offline in a text editor and then upload it, but that seems very calculated somehow and still leaves the formatting and adding of photos to be done in the blogging editor. My early experience of Blogger’s flakiness wasn’t very inspiring.

So, when Gill told me today that Microsoft, of all people, have published a new offline blogging tool I downloaded it straight away. It’s called Windows Live Writer and it seems to be a real boon.

You write and format your blog entry on your desktop PC rather than online. You can format it, add pictures, links and all the usual blogging paraphernalia. In fact, many of the functions which I’ve not yet found on the online WordPress editor are easily accessible in Live Writer. You can save drafts. Because it knows the look and feel of your blog page everything appears as it will in the finished product in true WYSIWYG fashion. I’ve found it altogether a much more comfortable experience than online editing.

Even the reviews have been very positive. And it’s free. That’s something for those knee-jerk Microsoft bashers to ponder. Oh, and this is my first post using it.