How to Blog on a Mac With MarsEdit

Mac users may find MarsEdit a big help when it comes to creating blog posts. You can write a post without being online and upload it when you're connected. It integrates with other Mac tools such as BBEdit, Text Wrangler and TextMate. It's compatible with numerous blogging platforms such as WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Drupal and Vox. The following steps will show you how.

Things You'll Need

• A trial or paid version of MarsEdit
• A blog

Instructions

1. MarsEdit is about $30 to purchase, but you can download a 30-day free trial before you buy to make sure it's the software for you.

2. 

   You can set up any number of blogs to post to. The MarsEdit interface lets you add posts, delete posts, view a post on the web and add media.

3. In terms of adding media, MarsEdit makes linking to your photos on Flickr a simple one-click operation. Drag images from your hard drive into the MarsEdit window and the image will upload with the post.

4. When writing a new post, select the blog where the article will go, create the title and the post, pick the categories for the post (you can even add new categories right in MarsEdit) and decide whether to allow comments and trackbacks. Specify whether the post should be published or held as a draft. In short, anything you could do while logged into your blog, you do right in MarsEdit.

5. Customize MarsEdit to use your blog templates, so the preview in MarsEdit will be exactly like the appearance in your blog. Create macros to insert commonly used snippets so you don't have to type the same information over and over in each post. Customize the editor window to the size you prefer, or to show the options you want.

6. Use Ctrl-Click on a highlighted passage to reveal contextual menus that let you add formatting such as em or strong tags, heading tags, paragraph tags, blockquotes and other HTML from within MarsEdit.

7. Scroll through your drafts or your already posted items and press Return to edit, post or repost the article.

Tips & Warnings

• Learn the keyboard commands to work faster and more efficiently in MarsEdit.

Resources

• MarsEdit