Blog Tipz

One mistake that I am sure happens to many people when they go to publish a post is that what they are writing is never formatted the way it should be by the time it appears on the main page of the blog. There is a simple way of making sure that it is – so you don’t have to continue going back to it to get it to appear the way it should.

I, for one, try to preview, or at least get every post, especially those containing images, to appear the way I want them to before I finally hit the Publish button. There are so many mistakes that can be made if you don’t, including:

• You find a mistake, or something within the post that shouldn’t be there.
• You haven’t resized an image, or the paragraph formatting is wrong, in relation to the image.
• The title isn’t correct, there are too many tags, or you make any other mistake that “peeves” you when it comes to blogging.

There are dozens of other reasons to preview a post before publishing, but that was just a touch of the biggest ones.

Next, we’ll be getting into how to do it for the major platforms, and further reasons why editing and revising your work is critical, even if you feel that only a few people are viewing your blog each day.

Previewing Within WordPress

1. When you are logged into your blog, and are ready to publish a post or want to see how it would look, go over to the right-hand column, and click the “Preview” button.
2. Typically, this will open a new window or tab, depending on your preferences.
3. Look this over, to make sure that it complies with what you are looking for in terms of formatting, grammatical mistakes, and so on.
4. If you are content with the way this appears, you can go right ahead to publish it, otherwise:
5. Go back to the main post page and edit what is necessary. It is worth noting that as long as you are using the shorter post URL (with no version number), refreshing the window that was opened will allow you to instantly see what has changed and whether further modifications have to be made.

In my opinion, this system of previewing is far better than other platforms, especially with Blogger. Although there are probably others out there that allow you instant access, in which you literally write within your blog, there is no better way to preview than seeing it on your blog.

Previewing With Blogger

Time and time again, I find myself confronted with the task of having to edit and re-edit a Blogger post. Perhaps it is the WYSIWYG editor, or else it is just me. Formatting is nearly always wrong, and code doesn’t format properly, no matter how you put it in. Some of the problem could be with the theme I am using, or how I need to edit code, but want to go back to the regular Compose mode.

Here are some tips on previewing with Blogger.

1. Once you are signed into the appropriate blog, go to the Preview button, which is located beneath the Title/Link field, to the left of the “Edit HTML” button.
2. This opens a rather obtrusive white box, which is basically just a preview of what the formatted post will look like, perhaps nothing what the published version will look like.
3. If you see any major problems, you can go back to the edit area and change what needs to be changed.
4. Otherwise, you can go ahead and publish the post.

Other Systems

From what I know, the same steps can be followed for TypePad and Movable Type. They will display the exact version as it will appear once you publish the post.

Take These Ideas Into Consideration

Mistakes, even the littlest, can have a significant impact on how others perceive you as a blogger. Not only could they help damage your image, but you could find that it takes time to recover after each “attack.” Posts that contain images, raw code, or other forms of non-text items should be paid careful attention to, as even small spacing issues and discrepancies make your blog look unprofessional.