There are several desktop apps that WordPress publishers can use to write, edit and publish content for their blogs, even without being connected to the internet. This really comes in handy for those who own several blogs or publish lots of blog entries. These apps make life a tad easier since you don’t have to log in to your blog’s dashboard and use the web-based panel to publish entries. Here are some of the best desktop apps for WordPress publishers.

For Windows

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer is an app that lets you compose blog posts and publish them to your blog service providers. It gives you the freedom to compose your posts offline and publish them later. It has a number of helpful tools such as preview of posts before publishing, image manipulation, spell check, easy HTML tables, maps from Virtual Earth, automatic synchronization of changes before re-editing posts and a custom WordPress sidebar for easy navigation to your blog, dashboard and stats. It is a free app that can be downloaded from the Microsoft Windows website. After downloading it, you will need to set it up by installing it then adding your active WordPress blog account. This may take eight to twelve minutes to complete.

Zoundry Raven

Zoundry Raven is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) blog editor. It allows you to drag and drop text, images and videos directly from the web. It therefore makes it easier for you to write a blog post while browsing the internet for information or references. It is a portable application meaning that you can carry it in a portable USB drive and blog while you’re on the go. When installed as a portable application, it stores all downloaded blog content, thumbnails, drafts and clipboard content in the USB drive. Any resources that are referenced on the primary hard drive are automatically copied to your profile in the flash drive. Zoundry Raven is available for free download.

BlogJet 3

BlogJet 3 is a WYSIWYG Word blog editor and manager that gives you the ability to write posts offline. It comes with a number of additional features such as image manipulation, spell checker, Auto Replace, Word Counter, Right Typography and integration with feed readers such as RSS Bandit, FeedDemon and NewsGator. It has a sleek interface with 40 skins. Its tabbed editor enables you to write many posts in one window. BlogJet enables group posting where you can publish the same post on several blogs, even if they are on different blog services. Drafts are automatically saved in the local storage database. The BlogJet app for a single user costs $39.95 whereas the Family Pack costs $69.95 and can be used by up to 5 family members. The app has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Blog Desk

Blog Desk offers various image enhancements. It does not have a drag ad drop function. It however has a WYSIWYG editor that can be used to insert images. Its additional features include Tags Generator to make adding tags faster and easier, a Notebook that facilitates arranging and rearranging of text before posting and Frequently Used Phrases that reuses text snippets.

For Mac

Ecto

Ecto is a multi-service editor for Mac OS X. It is easy to use and has a wide variety of features which give you much power in managing your blogs. It has an intuitive interface for creating entries offline. You can edit the entries using features such as spell check, search/replace, creating links and attachments just to mention a few. You can convert and scale images, and create thumbnails. You can also create poster movies or thumbnails from movie frames and save settings on a per-blog basis. It costs $19.95 after a free 21-day trial.

MarsEdit

Another multi-service editor of Ecto-like design is MarsEdit. It is one of the most celebrated publishing apps for Mac OS X users. Apart from the offline freedom it gives you and its quickly-learned interface, you get Rich And HTML Text Editing and trouble-free uploads. You can upload files and images directly to your blog or attach them to a post to be uploaded automatically during publishing. MarsEdit integrates cleanly with more hardcore Mac-specific text editors like BBEdit, TextMate, WriteRoom and TextWrangler. It offers live previews to show you how your posts will look before you publish them. It has a free, 30-day trial and costs $39.95.

Bits

Bits is a diary app with photos, tags, cloud synchronization and blog integration. It only takes up 6.2 MB on your desktop. It allows you to blog as well as journal. It facilitates quick creation of text entries and image entries by selecting a file when creating an entry, by dragging the image to the Bits window or by pasting using menu commands or keyboard shortcuts if the image is in the clipboard. It also has the full text-search feature. As you keep your journal, you can send selected entries directly to your blog. Bits is a free app.

For Linux

BloGTK

BloGTK is fast and simple to use. It makes uploading your WordPress blog from Linux more efficient and much easier. It enables you post to your blog without needing to open a separate browser. It not only allows you to connect to WordPress, but also to many other weblog systems such as Blogger and Movable Type. It is a free app.

Multi-platform

Qumana

Qumana is a blogging app that is available for both Mac OS X and Windows. Both versions of the app offer access to an ad network that you can use to generate income for your blog. You can use this app whether you are online or offline. Your blog posts are saved to your hard drive and can be uploaded whenever you like. The app gives you a platform for posting to all your blogs. It comes with spell check and a desktop notepad for collecting text, images and links through drag and drop.

Conclusion

There are many benefits of using one of these apps. It makes you easily manage and access multiple blogs, enables offline editing and comes with additional features. If you haven’t used a desktop blogging app yet, you should definitely start using one sooner rather than later and enjoy the numerous benefits.