How to Make the most of Blogger's New Editor

Blogger introduced its New Editor as part of the 10th Anniversary celebration. Even though the celebration started in August, some bloggers don't even know about it yet. Others want to wait for bugs to shake out. Those who have tried it give mixed reviews --- you either love it or hate it. I'm using it and can say I like the new Editor. I suggest you try it. The new features can solve one or two of those nagging, pet-peeve type problems.


How to switch to the New Editor

"To enable the new editor, first navigate to your blog's Settings | Basic tab. Near the bottom of the page you will see a field called Select Post Editor, and from there you simply need to select Updated Editor and save your settings." - overview in Blogger Help.

The selection will apply globally, across all of your blogs. If you decide you don't like the new Editor, then repeat your steps and select Old Editor instead.

Snapshots of the Toolbars

The new toolbar:

The old toolbars:

Obvious Differences in Toolbar icons:

• Missing: ABC spell checker and uploading Video.
  
• New: Undo/Redo arrows, Strikeout font, Text background, Remove formatting and Insert Jump Break (ReadMore).
  

New & Improved Features

• Vast improvement of image handling.
  Uploaded images show up as thumbnails, letting you add multiple images in one dialog. You can then close the dialog and add images throughout the post. The image gallery disappears after you close the post editing. This is great since now images are added at the insertion point of  your cursor NOT at the top of the post !!!!!
  
  You can then drag images around if you change your mind about the placement --- before you had to copy and paste the html to position the image and adjust sizes in the html --- the reason I published  how to outsmart Blogger's image handling.
  
  You can make images float left by dragging them left, right or center of the text. Also adjust sizes by clicking the image (small, med. large, x-large). If you right click the drag handles appear, letting your custom resize --- it's automatically changed in proportion.
  
  
• Improved raw html handling.
  Remember the extra blank (br) lines the old editor inserted in tables or around bullets? No more.The new editor preserves your tables, lists, and other advanced styling. You can specify line breaks setting by post rather than default across the blog. Use post options at the bottom of the edit window.
  
  
• Easy way to define post summaries on the home page.
  I jumped at this new feature, adding magazine style excerpts on the home page! See my post how to use Blogger's read more feature. While editing your new post, just click the page separator icon on the extreme at the point where you want the excerpt to end.
  
  
• And there's more.
  There are other features like the new post preview box which is much closer to the real width and font styling in your blog. (almost WYSIWYG).  You can also increase the height size of the post edit window by dragging the right end. Etc, etc, etc.
  

It's very easy to switch back and forth, so why not at least use the New Editor for handling images and Html styling. Most of us have browsers which provide automatic spell checking. When you do try the New Editor, let me know which features you like best.

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image by Smeerch

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