I recently purchased a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 (I know, it's almost 2010!) and have been doing some exploring to find new features. The best new feature I have found is the ability to publish directly from Word to your blog! There are several blog services (listed below) that are compatable with the program, and the setup is quite easy. It also lets you pull old posts from your blog back into Word for further editing, and then you can either save them to your computer, or republish with the click of a button!

The idea was appealing to me because of a goal to publish longer articles and content on a website I have been working on for several years. I purchased a web domain and hosting service and was thinking of being bold and learning html and purchasing a web design program, but stumbled upon the free WordPress blogging system. You can downlaod the wordpress files, ftp them to your web server, and in less than 5 minutes you have your own personal blog on your own personal site on your own personal domain!

Once you are at that point, it's time to blog! This is where Microsoft Word 2007 steps in.

There are two options for creating a blog post:

1. You can create a post from an existing file. Open the file and click on the little logo button in the top left corner. There is an option to Publish - Blog. Once you click on "Blog" it will take you to the blog module. Continue below....
2. You can create a new post from a blank page. When you click on New, you have the option to select "New Blog Post". This option will also take you to the blog module. Continue below.....

Once you are in the blog module, you have the option of adding or editing the Blog Title, categories and content. Exactly how each category functions and appears on your website will depend on the blog provider you are using.

The five tabs perform the following actions:

• PUBLISH: This will publish your blog to the website you have linked with Word.  It also gives you an option to publish a draft version that you can then approve in your blog management program
• HOME PAGE:  This buttion opens up a new web browser window and takes you to the Home Page of your blog
• INSERT CATEGORY:  Clicking this will add a category selection below the Post Title section.  If you have categories set up on your blog, it will give you a drop down menu list.  You can also add new categories directly in Word
• OPEN EXISTING:  This option will bring up a list of your existing blog posts.  You can select a blog post and open it for editing in Word, even if it was originally published directly with your blogging software.
• MANAGE ACCOUNTS:  You can use this to add an account, or several accounts, and to manage the settings on those accounts.  There is also a section to enter information on image uploading and hosting.

 It's that simple!  Once you have your account linked, you can publish in one click! 

Good luck!