I must admit that I am a fan of Windows Live Writer and have never written a post from WordPress interface since I have installed Live Writer.  Now, Windows Live Writer has got some new features and tools in the tech preview released recently.

The tech preview version’s new features cover almost all parts of blog writing i.e. text editing, video publishing, image editing and publishing and enhancements in the user interface.

I am listing the features one by one without categorizing them in various sections mentioned above as they are self explanatory:

1. Word Count: A very useful feature picked up from MS Word and meant for people who want to restrict them to a certain word limit.  Especially useful for professional writers who bill their clients on the basis of number of words written.  Like MS Word, you will find this feature in the “Tools” section of the top menu bar.

2. Auto Linking: Tired of linking certain words again and again; no worries because Live Writer now allows you to auto link the words that you choose.  You will have to make this setting once for every word and then Live Writer takes care of linking the word to the set URL.  To enable this feature for any word that you want auto-linked, just check “Automatically link to this term” while inserting a hyperlink.

3. Insert Videos From Soapbox: Now you can include videos from Soapbox in your blog post directly from within Live Writer.  You need to be a registered Soapbox user to use this functionality.

4. Image Editing: This area has got a lot of new features in this preview release.  You can now crop and tilt images, center align the image, create rounded corners, add reflection effect, and border to the image.

5. Category Search: This is for people who use lots of categories in their blogs; you can now search for categories while categorizing a post.  The search feature shows filtered results as you type the category name.

6. Tabs For Changing Views:  Live Writer now allows you to easily navigate between different views like “Preview” and “Source” view using the tabs given at the bottom of editing section.

You can download Windows Live Writer technical preview version here.

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