Log in using your username and password.

On the left sidebar, click on the Posts tab. It will open a drop down menu with two options: Edit and Add New.

Click on Add New. It will open a new screen.

Typing a new post

1. Type the title in the top box (please do not use all upper case letters)
2. Type the text in the larger white box
3. Edit the text and check everything one last time
4. Add a picture (optional)
5. Publish your post

There are several icons at the top of this window. They are commands for basic formatting, such as bold, italic, bullets, alignment, etc. The last icon on the first line named the “Kitchen Sink” opens a second line of icons adding more commands. Putting the mouse on top of each one tells you what each icon does.

Feel free to try them. Nothing will be “published” (made visible to others) until you press the Publish button.

There is one icon you need to pay special attention if you are pasting your text from Microsoft Word. It’s in the second line of icons and it looks like a folder with a W on top. Click on it, it will open a new window where to paste the text. This method will strip the text of all the formatting characters that Words adds.

• There are two tabs on the top right corner of the editing window. Press on the one labeled Visual to see your text exactly the way it’s going to be displayed. Let’s not worry about the other one, HTML, for now. It will be the theme of a future post.

Adding a picture

If you want to add a picture to your post, please read How to add an image to your post and for techniques see How to write a good blog post.

Speller Check

• If you see some words underlined in red, that’s the speller checker  at work.

Publishing

Once you finish reading and editing your text and you are ready to publish it, choose the category to which you want that post to belong. The categories list is on the right. Just click the one or ones you want.

• If you are ready to publish, press the Publish button on the top right sidebar. That will make your post appear in the blog.

If you are not ready to publish, press the Save Draft button on the top right sidebar. That will save your post until you are ready to publish it. You can even preview how it is going to look by pressing Preview. It will open a new tab in your browser. When you finish reading it, close that tab and you will be back in the editing window.

Editing your post

At any time afterward you can change or edit your post.

1. After log in, click on Edit on the left sidebar. It will open a new window with a list of the published posts. Although you see all the posts listed, you can only edit yours
2. Put the cursor on top of your post. Several commands will appear underneath
3. Click on Edit. It will open the editing window with your text/pictures already there. After you do the changes, remember to click Update Post to save them before leaving this window

In future post will explore other formatting options and features. Feel free to add comments about other ways you have found to simplify posting.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.