So, do you blog? It’s a common question people really are asking each other—and not just at dinner parties, either. When you punch up your resume, add something about your blog. New clients will want to know if you have any blogging experience. If you’re in an industry that relates to the public—and most of us are, in one way or another—having blogging experience is like adding a gold star to your personnel file, because today is all about the buzz, and if you can contribute to it, you’re in demand.
In case you hadn’t noticed, blogging is everywhere on the Web—individuals are doing it, mommies are doing it, businesses are doing it, and news corporations are certainly doing it. Let’s do it. Let’s talk about blogging in Word 2010.
The developers of Word have long been aware of the rise of interest in the blogosphere, and for that reason, for the last couple of incarnations, Word has included blogging as part of the program. You can start a new post using a method similar to starting a new document. And you can post directly to your blog without ever leaving Word. This is especially nice because it keeps a copy of the blog post where you can review it or use it in something else if you like, which is not the case if you simply use an online blogging tool to add your posts.
This chapter introduces you to the blogging features in Word and also opens up the conversation to the new Word Web App, the easy-to-use online version of Word that makes it possible for you to edit your annual report in coffee shops or trade files with colleagues in Tangiers. Very simple and very slick.
Come on, admit it. You’ve thought about blogging. No, maybe you don’t want to blog about your job as a purchaser of widgets for a large thingamabob factory. But you might like to blog about your interest in photography; or the fun travels you took last summer; or your interest in rare coins.
Blogging gives everyone a voice, and that’s one of the great benefits. It also represents one of the greatest challenges. Because everyone can blog, it becomes important to make yours stand out; to say something profound or interesting and somehow distinguish your content, your product, or your company. Blogging started in the mid-1990s, but most of the phenomenal growth in the “blogosphere” has taken place since 2000. Bloggers come from all walks of life, all age groups, and all perspectives—a fact that is both exciting and overwhelming when you begin to browse through the number of blogs available out there for your review.
At its most basic level, blogging is personal (or corporate) web publishing that you can do almost instantly—but it’s also more than that. One thing that sets blogs apart from other pages on the Web is their fast-changing nature and the fact that they often include links—links to other blogs, to resource sites, to communities, to media, and more. Links are created when others reference your blog in their own posts (and vice versa). Trackbacks enable people reading blogs to move from one to the next to the next. Bloggers are able to publish the latest news and can, within minutes, reach a worldwide audience, thanks to all the other bloggers who are searching for and linking to posts on that same topic. Combine this with Twitter and you have news unfolding as it happens—literally.
Some people blog for pleasure; they stay in touch with family and friends, or simply share their interests and outlook with the world. Others blog with purpose; they comment on political, corporate, or societal ideas and events, or they highlight stories that the mainstream media misses (or won’t spend much time on, such as behind the scenes stories on current events).
Bloggers told it like it was during and after the destruction caused by the earthquake in Haiti, they report on the war in Afghanistan, they help expose corrupt politicians and companies, and they provide a voice—sometimes a very loud and far-reaching voice—that broadcasts a part of the cultural debate that might not be well represented elsewhere.
The first blogging tools were a bit clunky and required users to learn HTML to post. As a result, most of the early bloggers were experts in technology. As blogging caught on, the tools became more user-friendly; even those without any programming experience could simply add their writing and photos to a page without a lot of hassle or technical know-how.
Blogging sites such as Blogger and LiveJournal have had a lot to do with the ever-expanding popularity of blogging. Utilities like blogrolls (a type of free utility that bloggers use to show links to their own favorite blogs) helped to expand the links. Social networking tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn make it easy for bloggers to share what they post with not just a single community but communities of communities.
You might wonder what blogging has to do with professional or corporate communications. Depending on the type of business you have, to a greater or lesser extent, your communication with your customers is important. Letting them know what you’re doing by writing about your new products, showing key new features, or introducing them to staff members can help the customer feel he “knows” your company.
Many companies today are encouraging their employees to blog about their projects (within nondisclosure guidelines, of course) to help give potential customers a behind-the-scenes look at the corporate life and mission. Microsoft is one of those companies with a large group of corporate bloggers—in fact, during the beta testing of Microsoft Office 2010, representatives from the different Microsoft Office 2010 program groups blogged for many months before the release. Interested users could go to the blogs to find posts on the latest new features in their favorite applications and find information on new or challenging tools—straight from the horse’s mouth.
Basically, creating a blog post is the same as creating any document—you click and type your text as you want it to appear. Follow these steps to start a new blog post:
Click the File tab to display Backstage view.
Click New, click Blog Post, and then click Create (see Figure 25-1).
The Blog Post window opens and a popup dialog box appears, asking you to register your blog account (see the image that follows). For now, click Register Later (you learn how to register your account in Configuring Your Blog Account) to return to the Blog Post window, as shown in Figure 25-2.
The Blog Post window includes two command tabs: Blog Post and Insert. When the Blog Post tab is selected (as it is in Figure 25-2), the groups provide you with the tools you need for working with your blog, working with the clipboard, entering basic text, applying styles, and proofing your entry. The Insert tab is available only if your blogging service permits you to include photos.
Tip
If you have more than one blog configured to work with Word 2010, a control is available so you can choose the blog to which you want to post.
To begin entering text for your post, click in the [Enter Post Title Here] prompt and type the title for your blog entry (see Figure 25-3).
Click below the line to begin entering the text for the body of your post. After you type the entry, click the Spelling tool to run the spelling checker. You can also change the typeface, size, color, or alignment of the text, just as you would modify the formatting of a traditional document.
If you want to change the style of the text, click one of the styles in the Style gallery or click the More button in the lower-right corner of the gallery. The Styles gallery opens, in which you can review and select the type of text style you want to apply to the post text.
As mentioned earlier, blogs wouldn’t be blogs without the links—they would be static Web pages. To add a hyperlink to your blog post, follow these steps:
Highlight the section to which you want to add the link.
On the Insert tab, click Hyperlink (see Figure 25-4).
The Insert Hyperlink dialog box appears.
In the Address box, type the URL to which you want to link the selected text.
Click OK to save the link.
The text will appear underlined in a blue font, indicating that it is now a hyperlink. If you want to ensure that you typed the link correctly, hover the pointer over the link. The URL will appear in a pop-up box above the link.
Categorizing your blog post helps search engines locate what you’re blogging about and also gives your regular readers a way to find all posts related to a specific topic. To add a category to your post, click the Insert Category tool in the Blog group on the Blog Post tab. The Category field appears above the body text of your post. Click the arrow to see the list of categories. Click the one you want to apply to the post you created.
Most blog posts include a heading and supporting text. Some blog posts include photos, as well. You can add photos to your Word blog post by clicking at the place you want to add the picture and selecting the Insert tab. Click Picture in the Illustrations group.
In the Insert Picture dialog box, navigate to the folder storing the picture you want to include, select the picture, and then click Insert. Once you add the picture to the post, the contextual Picture Tools tab appears. You can edit, resize, or add a style or special effect to the picture, as you normally would.
When you’re ready to publish your blog post, on the Blog Post tab, click Publish in the Blog group. If you haven’t yet set up your blog account (or if you clicked Register Later in the Blog Post window, as mentioned earlier in this chapter), you will be asked to enter the information for your blog account or sign up for a new one.
Click Manage Accounts in the Blog group to start the process of setting up your new blog account. In the Blog Accounts window, click New. The New Blog Post window appears. Begin by clicking the Blog arrow and choosing your service from the list. Here’s a quick introduction to each of the items on the list:
Windows Live Spaces. Windows Live Spaces is a free blogging and social networking service where you can blog, post photos, and connect with friends and family online. To find out more, go to http://windowslive.com/Online/spaces.
Blogger. Blogger is one of the largest and oldest blogging services available. Now part of Google, Blogger offers free blogging services without ads. Go to www.blogger.com for more information.
SharePoint Blog. To use this feature, you must have access to a company server running Windows SharePoint Services. Ask your system administrator for more information on whether your local server runs Windows SharePoint Services and to find out whether you have the permissions you need to post a blog to that server.
Community Server. Community Server is an online community-building program that is free for personal use but has varying licenses for commercial use. Community Server includes both blogging and forum posting features. For more information, go to http://Telligent.com.
Other. Use this if you have a service provider different from those shown in the list. If you have a different provider, click the My Providers Isn’t Listed link.
Make your choice and click Next. The New Account Window appears, asking for information about the blog. If you selected Windows Live Spaces, the New Windows Live Spaces Account dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 25-5. If you selected a Blogger account, the New Blogger Account window asks you to enter your user name and password.
Type your space name and enter the secret word. Select the Remember Secret Word check box if you want Windows Live Spaces to save your secret word and apply it automatically whenever you post. These settings set up the access to your blog.
Now you need to set up the picture options so that you’ll be able to include photos, graphics, pictures, diagrams, and charts in your posts. Click the Picture Options button to display the Picture Options dialog box (see Figure 25-6). Here you’ll choose the way in which your pictures will be hosted. Click the Picture Provider arrow and choose My Own Server if you have server space in which your images can be housed. If you have your own server space, click that option and enter the upload URL and source URL. Then click OK twice to return to your post.
Imagine how nice it is to not be tied to your computer at work. Using the Word Web App, you can continue working on your Word documents anywhere you have Web access. You can review reports at the coffee shop, log in and edit a letter from home, or even make last-minute changes on a brochure from your Windows-based smartphone.
The Word Web App—and all the Office Web Apps, for that matter—are free for you to use with your copy of Office 2010. The Office Web Apps work seamlessly with Windows Live SkyDrive so that you can easily upload, share, and work on your documents wherever you can get online. Once you upload your documents using Windows Live SkyDrive—or directly from within Word—you can edit them easily using the Word Web App.
Begin the process by saving your Word document to your Windows Live SkyDrive account. On the File tab, choose Save & Send then click Save To Web. Choose one of the folders or click New to sign in and create a new online folder.
If you don’t yet have a Windows Live SkyDrive account, click Sign Up and follow the onscreen prompts to obtain a Windows Live ID.
Tip
You can invite others to co-author the file you’ve saved in Windows Live SkyDrive by providing permissions to the users with whom you want to share the file. For more about setting file permissions in Windows Live SkyDrive, see Chapter 21.
When you’re out and about and want to work on your file using the Word Web App, first log in to your Windows Live SkyDrive account, and then click Office at the top of the window. A list of files you’ve added to the space appears. Hover the mouse over the file you want to see then click Edit In Browser (see Figure 25-7).
Tip
You can add more files to your Windows Live SkyDrive account by clicking Add Files and then dragging files to the upload space or clicking Select Files From Your Computer and choosing the files you want to add.
You can also open a document in Word 2010, which opens the file on your computer and then synchronizes your changes with the version on the server when you save the file.
When you open the file in the browser to work on it in the Word Web App, the first thing you’ll notice is the familiar Word Ribbon. Not all the tabs are available, but you’ll have the tools you need to work with the various elements on your pages and do all you need to do (see Figure 25-8).
As you can see, you can add content, assign styles, check spelling, and more using the Word Web App. On the Insert tab, you’ll find the tools you need to add tables, pictures, clip art, and links. The View tab gives you the choice of moving between Edit view and Reading view.
If you want to open a copy of the file in Word 2010, click Open in Word in the Office group on the Home tab. The file opens in Word but it is still linked to the online file; when you make changes to the file they are synchronized with the server so that the most up-to-date version of the file is available online.