OVERVIEW
In order to create a blog post and post it directly to the blog:
(1) You need permission from the blog manager to post. This usually is granted after you have successfully demonstrated your ability on our (private) test blog.
(2) You need basic computer skills, access to computer hardware and software and an Internet connection.
(3) You need to be willing to learn.
PREPARING THE TEXT
The text is best prepared using a basic word processor such as Notepad (Windows), TextEdit (Mac), iA Writer (iPad). Just open a new document in one of the above programs and start writing, just as if you were writing an email.
Please read the guide to writing your TR which is already on the blog.
If you intend to insert pictures into the post you should plan that they become like individual paragraphs within the text paragraphs. For example, you could type ”Pic 1 here” as a separate paragraph to indicate to yourself later where Pic 1 is to go. For example your text might look like the following:
-----------------
Blah, blah, blah…
pic 1 here
Blahby, blahby, blahby…
pic 2 here
etc
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If your post is to contain text only you can skip the next section about images.
PREPARING AND PLACING IMAGES
Overview
On a blog post, images cannot be embedded or attached as in an email or a Word Processing program. Instead, the images are ”called” (retrieved) from another location (usually a web server) using HTML code. The process of placing the image at that server location and acquiring and placing the HTML code is explained below.
First, prepare your image
There's a detailed explanation of how to prepare your images at this post here on our blog.
It is VERY important that your images do not exceed 700 pixels wide (explained in the above linked post).
Placing your images on the remote server
There are many free services on the Internet which allow the uploading of images for storage and access. Most of us use Photobucket, which we’ll use as an example here, but others may also work.
Get a free account at Photobucket (Note if you are using an iPad that Photobucket has a free App which is well worth installing). Make sure you keep note of your username and password for you’ll need them to upload new images and view the images you’ve uploaded. When you’ve established your account you’ll find a facility to upload images to your Photobucket album. Before you start doing this, you should consider creating various albums (eg ”fishing pics”, etc) to make it easy for you to find the images you want later.
Once you’re ready you’ll need to upload the prepared images to your Photobucket album. Because you prepared your images by bringing the width down to 700 pixels or less, your images will upload quite quickly, even over a basic Internet connection. At this stage make sure that your text file is available because you’re going to need to copy code provided by Photobucket and paste it into your text.
Once the images are uploaded you’ll be able to see them in the Photobucket album. With a bit of exploration you’ll also find a facility there for each image which will allow you to copy various unique codes. The one you need to copy is HTML code. Once you've copied the HTML code for an image you should then paste this code into your text at the location where you wish the image to appear. Do this systematically, by reading your text, finding the correct image, then copying and pasting the code for that image into the correct place in your text.
Your HTML code text, once pasted, will look something like this
You should now edit this code by deleting some of it (this process eliminates certain problems for people viewing the blog on a tablet computer or smart phone). You can do this with the normal editing tools on your word processor, just as you would with any other text, but be careful not to accidentally edit the part which needs to be left.
These deletions will leave you with code that looks something like the picture below (Don’t worry if it’s not exactly like this. It will work correctly as long as you haven’t done any extra editing.)
This code, when used in your blog post, will magically cause the image to be displayed in the blog at the place the code appears in the text. Yee Ha!
>>POSTING YOUR TEXT INTO THE BLOG<<
Once you’re satisfied that you have your text including your image code ready you can place it on the blog.
Presuming you have permission to post on the blog, you must now select the blog you wish to post into and select ”New Post”. Normally this facility is provided by Blogger using ”Dashboard” but there are other ways to post.
You will find that you are presented with a dialogue box which is designed to accept your text with another box, above it, which is designed to accept the Title of the post. The Title is important because it appears in the Archive so make sure you give your post a Title. Our TR post Titles consist of a catchy and very brief description followed by the trip date (eg ”Huge Spaniard, 03Apr12”). This date format has been selected because it takes up minimal space.
The first step is to go back to your text file and copy all of its text, including the image codes. Then switch back to the blog ”New Post” window, place the cursor in the provided space and select ”Paste” (usually this is done with right mouse button but there are numerous other ways). Your text will flow into the space.
Next sort out the Title. You can key this into the box provided or again you can copy and paste from somewhere else.
You’re nearly done. All you have to do now is press the ”Publish” button and, provided there are no horrible errors in your image code (invariably caused by user error), you’ll next be informed that all is well and be invited to view your post, which you should do. You can edit your post again, should you need to, and then republish. Don’t panic if the post doesn't look exactly like you expect it to and don’t forget that you can ask the blog manager to fix the problem if you don’t know how to do it yourself.
