Windows Live Writer is due an update, but the Windows Live Writer team hasn’t announced any time frames as to when we might see the new version.
And while Windows Live Writer 2009 is a great program for blogging, and especially the use of using themes as you’re composing the post, some times the program doesn’t do as you expected and the themes are all messed up, or the theme your using with Windows Live Writer is not compatible.
So to help others adjust on the fly, here’s some information on how to deal with it.
If your theme is not compatible with Windows Live Writer, there’s only a few things you can do; you can try the Windows Live Writer Theme Fixer [which is not 100% guaranteed] to make it work, or edit the HTM and CSS files manually, or you can turn the Edit w/Theme option OFF.
Windows Live Writer Theme FIXER
One of the developers [I think] created a program/utility to combat the growing issue of the failed theme’s in Windows Live Writer. The program is sketchy; I’ve used it, and it didn’t work for me. And there’s issues of compatibility and there’s not been a lot of support for it [that I’ve seen].
But the support issue, I understand because it’s an utility to fix a bug in Windows Live Writer… it’s a double edge sword for them to continue mucking with it.
Download it from here.
Manually Edit the HTML/CSS
If you’re not a HTML coder, this means you probably don’t know CSS either, but that’s why you had Windows Live Writer to begin with- right? So this may not be your answer.
BUT if you’re, your in luck! You can simply open the template files. I’m not going to give you a suggestion for a HTML program. If you can CODE; you already have one.
Windows Live Writer uses these files for edit during composition and previewing the post inside Windows Live Writer. The template files are located on your hard drive here:
C:Documents and SettingsYOURUSERNAMEApplication DataWindows Live WriterblogtemplatesLONGCRYPTICNUMBERYOUCANTREFERENCE
In each one of the template folders there are HTML files; you can edit those and make them whatever you want.
Manually Edit the Default Template
My favorite option is to simply edit the default template for Windows Live Writer. It’s a very simple HTML file; very little to it and you can set the width of the blog very easily and based on that, when you create a NEW post, the text and images should WRAP very close to what you would see when the post is published.
C:Program FilesWindows LiveWritertemplate
Your looking for these two files:
C:Program FilesWindows LiveWritertemplatedefaultstyle.css
C:Program FilesWindows LiveWritertemplatedefault.htm
Inside the DEFAULT HTML file you’ll find this:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<!– saved from url=(0013)about:internet –>
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; utf-8">
<LINK href="{0}" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV class="post">
<DIV class="title">{1}</DIV>
<DIV class="body"><P>{2}</P></DIV>
</DIV>
</BODY>
</HTML>
There’s nothing here [yet] to specify the width of the default template; let’s add it…
Where you see <BODY>, replace that with
<body style="width: 600px;">
The width of the body can be anything you want. Customize this to be the way you want or best suits your blog.
Your still not going to be able to preview the blog with all it’s theme glory, but you can post and then preview; and I think a lot of bloggers do this, so it’s not that big of a deal.
Adjust where you must, and I hope this helps.
Thanks,
LHenryJr.
www.lehsys.com
Pingback: Windows Live Writer
Pingback: Windows Live Writer 2011 – 15 Most Requested Fixes/Updates | LEHSYS
Pingback: INOVE Theme Detection: How to FIX it | LEHSYS
Pingback: Review/Evaluation: Windows Live Writer Beta Wave 4 | LEHSYS