It depends how much time you want to put into them.  Sometimes I write them in word, lately I just write them right on web site.

Hi Michelle - copying and pasting from Word is not a good idea, it seems that a bunch of unecessary codes are transferred to the blog which is not good for the post.  Read this article by Paul Chaney Copying and Pasting From MS Word or Other Websites. 

I did loose a couple of posts when I first started and it was very frustrating - so now I write them in Word, then copy and paste to notepad and then transfer them overhere.  The best bet is to try to do them here and save them often as "drafts" until you are ready to publish them.  Hope that helps!

Well Michelle...I am not a blogging King (nor Queen for that matter) but I would recommend you write your post in word, spell check it, save them, and then copy to the Active Rain. This way, if you make a mistake or active rain behaves in a quirky manner and accidentally deletes your post -no problem because you have a copy of it. I learned this the hard way, I frequently lost posts whey I was attempting to edit them on active rain. As far as the photos you will have to upload them in the rain they will not carry over from Word. Hope this helps.

I just read the other comments-I have not experienced any problems with posting from Word but maybe I have just been lucky.

Ines referred to Paul's blog, and Paul pretty much covered it, but a common problem is that abstract characters such as commas, quote marks and apostrophes get screwed up in the process of copy-and-pasting from Word.

On the other hand, if you composed your post in a simple text editor, such as Notepad, you'd be fine.

If you are real particular on English or have a bad Internet connection word would be better.  I is the worst or write blog and loose it because you lost your internet connection.

Hi Michelle,

I compose everything here on AR, then save as draft until I'm ready to publish. I found out the hard way that images (from the MS clipart that you can use in your word docs) will not show up here, again something about embedded codes. I have only lost one post in 88 and that was because my ISP went down. Hope this helps : )

Michelle,

I agree that you should write a draft first in either word or some other sort of document program.

If you read one  of Brad Andersohnsblog about how you can't go back..its because sometimes you can be preparing to post something and then your PC crashes,you lose al the work you just spent time doing.

Always write a draft, check and recheck it and keep it, you never know when you want it there!  Then send it on.

Patricia Aulson/Seacoast NH & ME & MA

Most of the time I just write direct on AR.  If it is a long blog that I want to take some time with or something on want to save on my computer, I use MS WordPad and save it as rich-text format.

This can be easity copied and pasted into AR.

I know how to add pictures, but I do not know how to word wrap, rather than have the picture on a separate line.  Can someone tell me how do word wrap.

Mike, the word wrap function here on AR?  It's in the photo upload tool.  Click on the Appearance tab, then click the drop-down menu beside "alignment" and select Left or Right

Sometimes the fonts don't transfer well from Word, so I generally just compose the blog here on ActiveRain.

Thank you all for your input. I was not aware that I could save as a draft as I was writing. I wrote this blog this morning after I had another blog disappear after about an hour of input, but before I could post it.

Rick/Innes: Thank you for directing me to Paul Chaney's blog. It answered a lot of questions.

Hi Michelle,

I have used word because when I used spell check here it freezes my screen and then I lose everything I just typed.

Kelli mentioned that she has not been able to transfer pictures from MS clip art.  I did come across a problem with one because it wasnt saved as a Jpeg file when I downloaded it.  It saved as a BMP file.  All you have to do is pull up the picture to save, type in a new file name and then under save file type go to the drop down bar and pick Jpeg format.  Then you can insert the the picture onto your blog.

This is funny - right as I started typing this I accidentally hit a button and lost my screen along with the comment I started to type! Anyway, I was going to say that I have Word 2007 and always draft there first. I can even add in hyperlinks that copy over. i've never had any problems. I'm not creatiev enough to use pictures yet, but when I do I'll probably just add thos ein directly on AR. The value for me in using word is that I write a lot for consumers. It is then much easier for me to take my article and insert it into a newsletter, use as a part of a presentation or add to my own website. I hope this helps!

Inga & Yvonne: It looks like you two have experienced similar problems to mine. I am probably doing something wrong, and maybe someday it will be revealed to me what that is, but until then I will muddle along as best I can!

To everyone that has commented on this post that keeps using word - it's not about being easier or having problems, using WORD is not a good idea for drafting blogs - you can loose a lot of the blogging benefits by the extra code that appears behind the scenes when copying and pasting. 

Ines

Yes and No....I usually start out on the blog 'post' page and let the blog develop as I writel  When it gets to be more than a few paragraphs long, past history has taught me to copy and past what I have written into Word beecause I have lost more than one potential blog through some 'glitch' while on the internet!

VAL

 I use Publisher & then move it to my blog. Sometimes after I post my blog I go back & take out the empty coding from the bottom.  I have a blog I did on AR that will not let me in to edit so I quit doing them here. Rick & Innes will have to blog on the problems on drafting in WORD.

Very helpful question and answers.  I have been wondering the same thing.

I asked Paul Chaney (see the second response above from Rick & Ines) and he said I could write my blog in any Windows program, copy & paste it into Notepad, and then copy & paste it into the Post a Blog window on AR. No saving necessary (unless you wanted to). Just the act of copying and pasting into Notepad would remove all of the unnecessary coding. But you still have to add the photos when you are on AR.

Thats my story and I'm sticking to it....

I have lost a few "in progress" blog entries.  It sounds like cut and paste is a good idea!

I usually use Word and then cut and paste. I have also done some writing in notepad and then moving it. Either way, cut and paste, spell check, and recheck...