Blogging With Pictures

One of my readers commented, “I love the embedded pictures — how do you do that?”

That’s a good question. I like to embed pictures when I can. It gives the blog more visual appeal and sometimes clarifies what I’m talking about.

I started blogging using a blogging tool called Windows Live Writer, but then Microsoft dropped support for it. When Blogger upgraded their authentication protocol from OAuth 1.0 to OAuth 2.0, Windows Live Writer was not similarly upgraded and it would no longer connect with Blogger. Windows Live Writer was sunk!

At that point I switched from Blogger to Wordpress, but I had so many articles on Blogger that I wanted to continue using that platform for my blog posts. One day I discovered an open-source blogging tool called Open Live Writer, and it was based on Windows Live Writer. I began using it to post articles to Blogger, and it worked well—for a while. Then Blogger (or more likely Google, which owns Blogger) changed their method of posting pictures to Blogger. After that, when I tried to publish a blog post with images, nothing happened. From my end, it appeared to publish with no problems. But in reality, it did nothing. Nada. Disappointingly, the people that created Open Live Writer did not release a new version to deal with this issue.

I was dismayed by this development. I could always use Blogger’s default interface, but I like using Open Live Writer. Why? Mainly because when I am writing an article on Open Live Writer, I can see what it will look like as I write it. I see the correct font, font size, colors, page width, etc., whereas with Blogger’s interface I have to “preview” the page in order to see how it will look. I prefer to see a “live” preview as I create the page, so that I can properly position elements on the page as I create them.

But I had just two options. I could quit using Open Live Writer and use Blogger’s interface. Or I could continue using Open Live Writer but without using pictures. I didn’t like either option, but I decided to continue using Open Live Writer.

But the problem of getting pictures to my blog remained. I solved that with a work-around. I go to Blogger’s interface and create a new, unnamed blog post, and I upload an image to it. Then I copy the image URL. At that point I can delete the temporary post and return to Open Live Writer. Using Open Live Writer, I insert an image “from the web” rather than “from my computer” and I paste in the URL I just obtained from Blogger. The image appears in my blog post. I can then resize it, reposition it, adjust the margins of the picture, and so on. When I publish the article, it has the picture or pictures embedded exactly where I want them to be and looking like I want them to look—more or less. The world isn’t perfect.

And that is how I put pictures into my blog. It’s simple—and quicker to do than to explain!