Format your blog entries

It’s very easy to format your blog content (add bold or italic text, hyperlinks, block quotes, etc.) from the Post window, where you do your writing.

There is a formatting toolbar along the top of the Post window. Hover the cursor over each icon to see what it does.

From left to right you have icons for the following styles: bold, italic, strikethrough, bullets, numbers, outdent, indent (gives you a block quote), left, right and center justification, add hyperlink, remove hyperlink, insert image, split post, spellcheck, and help.

The last icon to the right, after the help icon, opens an additional toolbar with more formatting options. Hover over the icons to see what they do.

To format text, select it and click the button in the toolbar for the style you want to apply.

The insert image icon allows you to insert an image that appears somewhere else on the Web by linking to it. This way your server space isn’t taken up. To do this, you need to enter the URL of the image, which you can get by right-clicking on the image and choosing Properties. See Add images to your blog entries to insert images from your hard drive.

You may have some long entries on your blog and want to display only the first couple of paragraphs on the main page. You can split the post using the split post function, which automatically inserts a More link that readers can click to read the whole blog entry (example). To apply the split post function, insert your cursor where you want to split your post and click the icon.

Add images to your blog entries

You can insert images anywhere in your blog entries. Free WordPress blogs limit the amount of server space you have to 50 mb (but you can buy more).

Images should have a resolution of 72 dpi (dots per inch), which is the correct resolution for on-screen images. Files of 72 dpi are low resolution and, therefore, the file size is small. The smaller the file size, the less space they’ll take up on the server.

It’s probably a good idea to limit your images to a width of 500 pixels if you want them to be as wide as the main section of a blog like this one.

TIP: For those of you who don’t have Photoshop or another image editing program, you can edit your photos on Snipshot. You can’t do a lot with it but you can do the basic crop, resize, and rotate. You can use the Enhance feature to adjust your light balance. You can save the finished photos to your flickr account or save a jpg to your desktop. It’s quick, free, and registration is not required.

The image upload box is below the Post box on the Write page.

To add an image from your hard drive to your blog entry:

• Click Write in the Admin Panel.
• In the image upload box, click Browse to browse to a file on your hard drive. Title and description are optional.
• Click the Upload button at the bottom. The following screen appears:

Choose Full size. If you choose Thumbnail, a tiny version of your image is displayed on your page. Under the Link to options, choose None. However, if you want your image to be a hyperlink choose Page and enter the URL of the web page you want the image to link to in the dialog box that appears.

• In the Post window, place the cursor where you want the image to appear in your entry and click Send to Editor. The blue frame around the image won’t show up in your blog entry.
• Click Save and Continue Editing and scroll down to preview the entry containing the image.

To insert an image in your blog from somewhere else on the Internet (this doesn’t take up your server space) see Format your blog entries.

To delete an image from an entry, click the image in the Post window and press the Delete key on your computer keyboard. This does not delete the image from the server.

To delete an image from the server (where you have a limit of 50 mb of space):

• Click the Browse tab in the image upload box.
• Click the thumbnail of the image you want to delete.
• Click the Edit link to the right of the image filename.
• Click the Delete File button.

OR

• Click Manage in the Admin Panel.
• Click the thumbnail of the image you want to delete.
• Click the Delete File button below the picture.

Create categories for your blog entries

You will probably find yourself writing about more than one topic. For example, I have categories for my general rants, for environmental topics, for anecdotes about living in France, and more. You can create as many categories as you want and label every blog entry with one or more categories. There are a few different ways to create categories.

To create categories:

• Click Manage in the Admin Panel and Categories in the sub-panel.
• Either click the add new link or go to the bottom of the page and add a category in the Add Category dialog box.

OR

• Click Write in the Admin Panel.
• Enter a category, such as “Life in France,” in the text field under Categories at the top right of the page.
• Click Add. Your categories appear in a list below. Any time you are writing an entry, check the checkbox next to the category label(s) you want to apply to the entry.

Change the look of your blog

WordPress calls the prepackaged blog designs “themes.” When you first create your blog, your theme is the WordPress default theme. You can change themes whenever you want without losing your existing blog content.

To choose a new theme for your blog:

• Click Presentation in the Admin Panel. The name of our current theme is displayed at the top of the page. Other available themes are below.

• Click one of the theme images and click View site at the top of the screen. Your new blog design appears.

• Use the back button to go back to the theme selection page to try other themes. Note: some themes, like Cutline, which I use for this blog, allow you to upload your own image to the header.

Create a blog on Blogger

Blogger is another free blog service. It is also very easy to create a blog on Blogger.

I decided to use WordPress for this class because it’s more versatile and the themes are more sophisticated. However, feel free to use Blogger to create your blog if you prefer.

To create a Blogger blog, you need a Google account.

To create a blog on Blogger, go to http://www.blogger.com/start.

Get Google Reader newsreader

Half the fun of being a blogger is being part of a blogging community. There are programs called newsreaders that collect all your favorite blogs and websites and feed them to you.

One very simple, user-friendly, and free newsreader is Google Reader (see screenshot below).

All of the blogs and websites I “subscribe to” are listed in the left column and organized into categories that I created. When you select a blog or website, current articles are loaded into the page on the right. If a link is not bold, then there are no new articles to read.

Google Reader simplifies your life immensely if you read many websites or blogs. To get Reader, you need a Google/Gmail account.

For more: www.google.com/reader

Contact me

If you would like to contact me, you can e-mail me at