An offline blog editor is essential for both casual and professional bloggers in order to streamline the writing process, simplify image uploads, enable post editing while offline, and to save your posts should you suddenly lose your internet connection. There are quite a few blog editors to choose from, and some are free, while others come with a modest price tag, but all should make your writing task management much easier to handle.Here are some essential features you’ll need in every offline blog editor:· WYSIWIG and HTML editing options.
· Integration with all major blogging platforms.
· Image editing and formatting options.
· Offline editing for posts and pages.
Here are five of the best blog editors that are currently available:
Qumana
One of the biggest drawbacks to the different blog editors is that many of the best products are limited to either Windows or Apple. The fact that Qumana can work on both is reason enough to let it stand out from the pack since it offers all of the necessary features you need for composing posts, formatting them, and uploading them to a variety of blogging platforms without limiting you. Qumana provides all of the essentials for a blog editor and is a free download, even if its user interface isn’t quite as sleek as the editors that come with a price tag.
MarsEdit
MarsEdit is currently one of the most popular blogging programs for a Mac because it easily integrates with a wide variety of existing programs and plugins that are commonly used by website designers. For instance, MarsEdit integrates with BBEdit, TextMate, WriteRoom, TextWrangler, or any editor that supports the ODBEditor suite. Mac users will especially like the ability to add pictures from iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, or Flickr libraries with the click of a button.
Unlike its free Windows counterparts such as Live Writer, MarsEdit does come with a $29.95 price tag. However, it provides all of the features you need in a blog editor while also making it convenient to integrate the tools that designers and Mac users rely on.
Ecto
Ecto has long been one of the standard blog editors for Mac users searching for an equivalent to Windows Live Writer. Ecto offers a lower price of $19.95 and provides a range of features that Mac users will find helpful, including intregration with your address book, iTunes, or iPhoto. You can use Ecto natively in a variety of languages and use with both HTML and WYSIWIG editors. It is clean and easy to use, though it doesn’t offer the same range of integrations as MarsEdit.
Windows Live Writer
This free blog editor has been a long time favorite of bloggers who run Windows because it integrates all of the best features of Microsoft Word into a free, intuitive blogging program that makes it simple to customize your blog posts, add media to them, and upload them to your site. The image editor is particularly robust and easy to use, saving bloggers quite a bit of time if they need to make major modifications to an image. You can also save drafts, create pages, and track your post’s word count and spelling mistakes.
In addition, more advanced users can add a series of plugins to Live Writer in order to add additional features such as automated social media integration. The downside to this program is that Windows downloads five other programs to your computer.
BlogJet
Windows Live Writer provides what most bloggers need for an unbeatable price, but if you need more features, then you may consider paying $60 for Blog Jet. Blog Jet takes the features in Live Writer to the next level, offering language options, feed reader integration, and full Unicode support. You can use BlogJet with any blogging program, though designers looking for a more feature rich program are probably the ideal users for this program.
Some of the best blog editors are free programs that will enable you to get started right away with all of the features you need—with Qumana and Windows Live Writer standing out. If you need something a little more specialized for a Mac, then Ecto or MarsEdit will provide just about everything you need for an affordable price. Whichever program you choose from this list, a blog editor will make writing blog posts easier and more secure.