Blog production toolkit: writing and image editing tools
So far in the Blog Production Toolkit series we’ve looked at the basic technical tools you need to run self-hosted WordPress, and we’ve studied my list of must-have WordPress plugins for increased blog functionality.
Now let’s turn to the creative side of things. These tools help you manage your writing and images more efficiently so updating the blog doesn’t become a chore.
Posts and Pages – the Writing
WordPress Visual Editor – of course, the WordPress software is centered around a console where you can write and edit your individual posts and pages, upload photos or graphics from your computer, and click to publish. For quick posts, this is the one and only stop you need.
I don’t do a lot of “quick posts,” though, so I have a three-step process that I call “write-strip-post.”
Write – I use the built-in free word-processing software that comes with Windows, called MS Works, to compose my posts. That’s primarily because for me, the writing is still the most important part of the process and I want to be able to focus on it and give each post the attention it deserves. Personally, I can’t do that with all of WordPress’s bells and whistles surrounding my composition area.
Strip – I then copy and paste my finished post into Windows’s free text editor, Notepad, to strip out any formatting that MS Works may have added.
Post – I then copy and paste the clean text from Notepad into the composition window in WordPress. I add any necessary formatting and effects such as bullet points or italics, add an image (or 2 or 6, depending), check my tags and assign a category, preview, and click the Publish button all in WordPress. This step usually takes me about two minutes, unless the preview reveals some necessary editing.
Photos and Graphics – the Imagery
No question that photos and graphics enhance all but the shortest posts – they can provide a visual representation of the concepts you’re writing about, they can help draw the reader in to actually read the post, and they can serve simply as a way to break up a sea of words in a longer post.
Most likely, you’ll need to crop and possibly re-size your images before uploading them into WordPress. I use two tools for this:
Picnik.com – a free web-based photo editing system that performs simple functions quickly and easily without installing software.
Corel Paint Shop Pro – Yes, Adobe Photoshop’s the industry standard. But I’ve been using PSP since I first started building sites in 1996 – it’s cheaper, and later versions rival the more expensive products in terms of features. In fact, I still run an older version of this program because it’s lean and simple.
Once a photo is cropped and sized appropriately and saved to your computer, you can upload it directly into your post using WordPress’s image-loading feature. Personally, I use my FTP software to upload the image into my image directory, then use WordPress’s “add image from URL” feature.
