Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Using MS Word to Create Blogger Posts

Using Microsoft Word and Google Docs to Create Blogs and Post

Them to Blogger


I have been having a deuce of a time trying to use MS Word as the word processor for blog posts to Blogger. Google no longer supports the Word blogger add-in, and Word reports simply that it can’t publish the blog (if you started in Word to create a document of type blog). This started happening just this week for me, although research tells me it has been going on for some time for others.

I am posting this so if you want to use MS Word to create posts for Blogger, you can see how to do it. Too bad Google doesn’t have the grace to post this for all of us earlier.

Start with an MS Word .docx File


This title is actually a Heading 2 style (the start of the blog uses a Heading 1 style).
This document originated in MS Word, was saved-as an MS Word .docx document with graphic picture placed where you see it now. That’s me, several years ago, with my Superman suit. Quite a few years ago, actually. You could just as easily have used a “.doc” file instead of an Office 2007 version of Word.

I then uploaded it to Google Docs, selected all (by highlighting the whole thing), then CTRL-C copied it (copy doesn’t work; it simply creates a link), and pasted it into a new Blogger blog (the one you are now reading). Bottom Line: You can use MS Word in .doc mode to create blogs, then post them to Blogspot via Google Docs.

Table Test

I was curious if an MS Word table would survive the process. As you can see, it did.
Here is a test table, 2 columns x 3 rows, with the first row a heading and shaded:

Heading 1Heading 2
Row 1 column 1Row 1 column 2
Row 2, column 1Row 2, column 2

The shading didn't show up really well, but you can see a difference.

Graphics Test Too

Here’s a picture test to see whether it would survive the trip to Google Docs, and then a copy/paste to Blog. You can see that it did. This is much better than the old “paste a picture to the top of the blog, then try your darndest to move it where you really want it to be placed.”
 

Bottom Line

This process works, not perfectly but it works, although I don’t know what happens if I delete the Google Docs version of this document and the accompanying in-line picture. For now, I’ll leave well enough alone.


If you are as frustrated with Blogger as I am when it comes to creating blog posts with Word, I hope this helps. For now, I'll leave well enough alone.

October 22 2010 update:
This funky procedure that worked a month ago now fails. I've posted many questions to Blogger support about how to use Word as an editor for Blogger blog posts, but have heard nothing.