When it comes to desktop blog publishing tool, Windows Live Writer is the one that echoes in my mind. Windows Live Writer is sure the best offline blog publishing tool, but sometimes configuring it for especially WordPress blogs, creates a lot of problem. It’s the very start that creates a bit problem, rest is just a smooth sail. So how to configure Windows Live Writer for the self hosted WordPress blog. Here’s a quick tutorial which will guide you through the minutes steps to make it easy for you (Also store Windows Live Writer Drafts at Dropbox).
Configure Windows Live Writer For Self Hosted WordPress Blog
- I’m assuming that you’ve downloaded the Windows Live Writer tool to your PC. If not, please get one from here. Download and install it. Open the Windows Live Writer from the start menu. You will be asked to setup your blog on Windows Live Writer.
- But before proceeding, please login to your Self Hosted WordPress blog Dashboard.
- Under Settings menu, move on to Writing Section.
- Enable the XML-RPC check box, listed under Remote Publishing. Now you can log out of your WordPress Dashboard if you want.
- Coming to the Windows Live Writer, now choose the Blog service you are using(as this tutorials is for Self Hosted WordPress blog), then proceed with WordPress as your selection and click on Next.
- Add the blog account by filling up the blog details including the Blog Address(the URL of the blog, http://www.example.com), Username and Password, you use to sign up into your WordPress Dashboard. Also remember to check the Remember my password, if you want to avoid the unnecessary pop-up to ask the same for every step you perform afterwards. Click on Next.
- Sometimes, Windows Live Writer is not able to detect the blog settings, so it again asks for the Blog service you are using and the actual Remote publishing web address of the blog. Now this is the tricky part here.
- As per the latest trends, all the bloggers are using WordPress version 3.2+, so choose the one from the drop down list. And in the section “Remote posting web address for your blog” instead of this “http://<hostname>/<wp_path>/xmlrpc.php” write “http://www.yourblogname.com/xmlrpc.php”. Make sure that the web address is ending with xmlrpc.php. Click on Next.
- Now it will detect the blog settings, detect the theme and will create an edit theme settings. You’ll be prompted to download the blog theme by publishing a temporary blog post. Don’t worry the temporary post will be immediately removed, in some cases, users may have to remove the temporary post manually. But that’s not the reason to worry. The blog theme is downloaded so that bloggers can view the live preview of their blog posts offline via Windows Live Writer. Click Yes to download the blog theme, else No.
- Now your blog is configured on Windows Live Writer, click on Finish to start using Windows Live Writer. Enter the blog nick name and voila!! You are done.
So with that, you are ready to roll up your sleeves to write blog posts right from the offline desktop blog publishing giant, Windows Live Writer. Do comment if you are still facing any problem configuring your blog.
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