Windows Live Writer is a easy-to-use software that will make it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service.

Blogging has turned the web into a two-way communications medium. Our goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone.

Writer has lots of features which we hope make for a better blogging experience. Some of the ones we are most excited about include:

WYSIWYG Authoring
The first thing to notice about Writer is that it enables true WYSIWYG blog authoring. You can now author your post and know exactly what it will look like before you publish it. Writer knows the styles of your blog such as headings, fonts, colors, background images, paragraph spacing, margins and block quotes and enables you to edit your post using these styles.

Writer also includes other views including HTML source-code editing and web preview mode.

Now you don't have to waste time going through the process of publishing, refreshing, previewing, and tweaking your post to get it looking the way you want. It's all right there in Writer as you create your post.

Photo Publishing
Writer makes inserting, customizing, and uploading photos to your blog a snap. You can insert a photo into your post by browsing image thumbnails through the "Insert Picture" dialog or by copying and pasting from a web page.

Once you've inserted the picture, Writer provides contextual editing tools to modify size, text wrapping, borders, and apply graphic effects. Writer also allows you specify a smaller thumbnail to that will link to a larger image for detailed viewing.

Photos can be either uploaded directly to your weblog provider (if they support the newMediaObject API) or to an FTP server.

Map Publishing
Whether you are blogging about a vacation or a political conflict, maps are a great help in engaging the imagination of your readers. You can do this using Writer's ability to insert a Windows Live Local map directly into a post.

Even better is that the map can be customized directly within Writer - including changing the view to show road, aerial or bird's eye detail and by adding pushpins (including custom links and/or photos for each pushpin).

When readers click on the map they get a larger view on the Windows Live Local site.

Here are some key features of "Windows Live Writer":

Compatible with your blog service:
· Writer can to publish to Windows Live Spaces, SharePoint, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Moveable Type, Community Server, and many other weblog services.
WYSIWYG editing:
· Writer knows your blog's visual theme. So you can see exactly what your posts will look like as you write them, before you publish. No more wasting time previewing your posts online.
Rich media publishing:
· Writer makes publishing rich media as easy as sending e-mail. Insert and customize photos, maps, tags, and lots of other cool content-then click the "Publish" button. It's that easy.
Powerful editing features:
· Creating compelling blog posts is much easier with the ability to insert and edit tables, check spelling as you type, and format and hyperlink content at your fingertips.
Offline editing:
· Now you can blog anytime, from anywhere. Writer synchronizes drafts on your blog with changes you make when you're offline, so you don't have to worry about reconciling different versions.

Requirements:

· Processor: Minimum 800 MHz processor
· Memory: Minimum 128 MB of RAM (256 MB recommend)
· Hard drive: Up to 50 MB of hard disk space for installation; 15 MB to run the program
· Internet Explorer version 6 SP1 or later
· Microsoft .NET 1.1 or later
· Internet connection: Internet functionality requires dial-up or broadband Internet access
· Display: Minimum 800 x 600 (1024 x 768 or larger recommended)

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Insert videos using our new 'Insert Video' dialog
· Upload images to Picasaweb when publishing to your Blogger blog
· Publish XHTML-style markup
· Use Writer in 28 additional languages
· Print your posts
· Justify-align post text
· Better image handling (fewer blurry images)
· Resolved installation issues from last release
· Many other bug fixes and enhancements