Every software has its own pros and cons and the to make use of all the features are very important if we need to use the application effectively. Most of us use many application, but many do not know about all the features that an application has. I  have been using Windows Live Writer for some time now. There are lots of features available for this application and if we use it, this is an excellent application or I could say a must have application for a blogger.

You can download windows live writer first and install it. This is 100% free and this is updated automatically with windows update

Once you install it, you need to do the set-up as an normal application. Once installed just open the application and the first thing to do is to configure you blog. You can configure any number of blogs. WLW supports almost all the popular blogs like wordpress, typepad, blogger, blogspot, etc.

Adding a new blog to windows live writer

Just go ahead with the instruction to add a new blog and follow the instruction. You will need to provide the URL of your blog and the login credential.

Once the account is set-up the theme is updated to the live writer and you can view the web layout along with normal layout, HTML view and web preview.

This is the snapshot which I had done when I was writing this post.

This is the side pane of the windows live writer. You can find lots of links which are very useful. You can insert an image, hyperlink, tag, table, code, video, map and lots of features as you see.

Creating a new post

Creating a new post is very simple, just click on new and select the write weblog if you have configured multiple blogs.

Saving a post as draft on to the web server

You can publish the post directly or save as draft to you local drive or even post as draft to the web server. You can find the save draft button on the toolbar

Saving images using FTP

If you have problem in saving images to your web server, you can use the FTP feature

1. If you use Writer with more than one blog, on the Weblog menu, select the blog that you want.

2. On the Weblog menu, click Edit Weblog Settings.

3. On the Images tab, click Upload images to an FTP server, and then click Configure FTP.

4. Complete the following settings:
# FTP hostname: The name of your FTP server.

# Username and Password: The user name and password for your FTP account.

# Publish images into this folder: Include the full path to the folder on the FTP server. To find the path, click the Browse button.
# URL of image publishing folder: The web address of the folder where people can view your images. The address should start with http://, not  ftp://.
# Click OK, and then click OK again.

Tags Feature

You an insert different tags using the tags feature. You can even create custom tags. By default, you can see wordpress, technorati, buzznet, etc.

Selecting the category

You can find the list of categories inside the category selector, which at the bottom of the page. You can even add new category from your windows live writer.

You can do almost everything that you do when you do a post by using the default posting page of a wordpress blog.

Plugins

You can install the necessary plugins by clicking on the add plugin link which you can see on the right bottom of the screen. You will be take the plugin gallery, just select the needed one and click install. Restart the application and you will find it in the plugin list

You can browse through the WLW Plugins Gallery for some good plugins that you would like to use

Hyperlink Glossary

This is something which I use much. You can save the links in the glossary. Just go to Insert Hyperlink after selecting the text that you want to add a link. If you have already saved this link to the gallery, then you will find the saved information inside the pop-up window, just click ok and the link is added.

Other Features

1. Spell checks
2. Automatic updates
3. Pinging

Windows Live Writer is an excellent tool if you know how to use it.