We are all about consolidation here at Elegant Code. Having spent years subscribed to the right tool for the job theory of software tools, I am getting tired. I am looking for the Shopsmith of blogging tools.

I spent a lot of useless energy about 18 months ago searching for the perfect blogging tool, and settled upon Rocket Post at the time. My current situation is that I own licenses for Rocket Post, BlogJet, and I have actually been using the freely available Windows Live Writer. Windows Live Writer has been quite a pleasure to use and is a great example of usable Microsoft freeware.

Now what, you ask? This post is authored in Microsoft Word 2007, which has a little discussed blogging feature. I am trying it out, here but the features seem a bit clunky and non-integrated for my taste.

What I Like So Far

1. Mature word processing features like spell-as-you-type. This is Word, after all.
2. Settling on Word 2007 would mean one less application to run and manage on my machine.
3. Using the blogging features gets me one step closer to being a Microsoft Word prophet. The merits of this moniker are questionable at best. J
4. Using word styles from the menu ribbon.
5. The ability to cleanly add tables without downloading an add-in.
6. I can publish Office 2007 Smart Art smoothly. Nice.

What I Dislike So Far

1. The built in image editor is overkill to be simple and under-kill to be useful. Image placement is awkward. I miss the photo treatments available in live writer. Bottom line, picture support is difficult to use.
2. Category assignment is awkward.
3. Managing draft posts as separate files is messy. I much prefer the abstraction provided by both Rocket Post and Live Writer.

   
   

   Me in a test photo