Microsoft’s Windows live writer seems to be coming of age.

This is a free tool to allow you to create blog posts but in a software application very much like a word processor. The alternative is to use the editing tools in your blogging software. In my case that’s Wordpress.

I tried an early beta of Live Writer, and it failed to create and publish a test post. So when the latest beta came out I thought I would give it a try and it works great.

This post was created in Live Writer and you can edit your post offline and then publish when ready.

Here is an example of the Writing interface in Wordpress. 

Here is an example of the Writing interface in Windows Live Writer. 

The key benefits are Spell checking, good image upload support and the ability to design in your blog template offline.

I am going to use Windows Live Writer for the rest of the week but so far I am really impressed.

If all goes well I will do a quick Screencast.

Link: http://writer.live.com/