Typepad 101: Little Tricks to Make Blogging Easier!

Welcome to Typepad 101! Whether you want to add some new features to your blog's design, or simply make your blog more functional, Typepad 101 has you covered. Topics covered in this series are suitable for bloggers at any skill level. If you're at a plan which doesn't include a necessary feature, you can upgrade to put these tricks to use on your blog.

It's often the little things in life - and blogging - that make all the difference. We've collected a bunch of little tricks that will make blogging with Typepad easier. Hey, it adds up!

Design not updating? Try a hard refresh. On a PC, use Ctrl + F5 or on a Mac, use Command + Shift + R or in Safari > Empty Cache while viewing your blog. That will dump your browser's cached version of the blog's design and force it to update to the newest version.

Start a new line, not a whole new paragraph. Using the Enter key will start a new paragraph in the Compose editor. If you just want to start a new line, use Shift + Enter.

Need additional "about" pages? That's easy! Your account has one built-in "about" page that you can edit via Account > About Me Page. If you start a new blog and the topic is slightly different, you can create a Page as part of that blog and fill that in with any information you want to include. Plus, the design will automatically match the rest of the blog.

You have a shiny new iPad and want to use it for blogging. One word: Blogsy!

Your friend is itching to post on your blog but you don't want to give him access to the whole account. Invite him as a guest author - he'll have his own free Typepad guest account and will only have access to his own posts.

If you want to include just an excerpt of a post on the main page, use the split extended entry feature. You can decide where you want the split to be and Typepad will automatically create a link to the rest of the post for you.

If one of your sidebars goes missing, check your latest post. It's usually a code issue that's causing a sidebar to drop down to the bottom of the page. Try using Fix My HTML to correct it. Just click on the HTML tab in Compose, copy the code, paste that into Fix My HTML, fix it, copy the updated code, and paste that back into the HTML tab in Compose.

Taking a blog "offline" while you work on setting it up - use password protection. You'll set a username and password that only you have access to, allowing you to view the blog online without others seeing it.

When working on a long or complicated post, save as draft often. Typepad has an auto-save feature but it's also a good idea to save the post occaisionally while working on it. You never know when your connection will go down or the power will go out - just do it!

Have content you want to stick to the top of the page? Use the Featured Post setting. It's a lot easier than trying to force that post to stay in place via the date/time.

How do I get to the fancy Aviary editor? I don't see it when I upload my image! After inserting your image in the post, just double click on it and that will bring up the fancy Aviary editor. Voila!

Floundering? Flailing? Ask for help. We're here for you.

Comments

[Jennifer]

I always write my posts offline in Word, and then copy it to Notepad before copying it to Typepad. That way, the inherent styles in my Word program don't mess with the styles in my blog.

[A Twitter User]

That is an excellent way to not only compose your blog article offline but also ensures that you will not lose copy in case the Typepad site crashes or experiences a technical difficulty.I have had the unfortunate experience of losing blog content during the compositional stage of writing. I saved the content frequently as directed but somehow the gremlins seem to rob me of the text. By writing in Word you have the option to save your work independently of the typepad editor. The copy is safe for future referencing in case you want to change or edit the material.

[Colleen]

Some versions of Word have an option to post directly to your blog from the application - it's very handy:

http://help.typepad.com/word.html

[PJ Gach]

What's the Aviary Editor? It doesn't need birdseed does it?

[ZingDay]

This isn't mentioned above. But something I need help with is inserting photos. Sometimes I have ten or more to include. Is there a way to publish them all at one time rather than one by one?

[RobiNZ]

Live Writer is an excellent offline Windows editor for Typepad. It's part of the free Windows Essentials suite, if you don't want the rest just select Live Writer after launching the full web installer

[A Twitter User]

It's a photo-editing editor for your images.

[Colleen]

There's a beta feature for this - it's been tested, we're just working on getting it out of the beta bucket. You can opt into beta via your Account page. There's info about the feature here:

http://help.typepad.com/edit-image.html

[PJ Gach]

Ah, thanks!

[leanport]

Thanks for the post. This is the great way to make your blogger design perfect.