Welcome to Blogger! This guide can walk you through how to create a
blog, and help you familiarize yourself with the main features of
Blogger.
To start using Blogger, simply
sign in
with your Google Account. (If you use Gmail, Google Groups, or orkut,
you already have an account.) If you don't have a Google Account yet,
you can
create one now.
Create a blog
To start a blog with Blogger, visit the
Blogger homepage, enter your username and password, and click
Sign in. Enter a display name and accept Blogger's Terms of Service. Then click the
Create a Blog link and get started!
Pick an address (URL) and a blog title. Then, choose your favorite
blog template (this is how your blog will look when you publish it). Now
get creative, add information to your personal profile, and customize
how your blog looks, if you feel up to it. Start blogging now!
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Dashboard
Your Dashboard, as always, is your starting point. This is where all
your blogs are listed, and you can click on the icons next to them to
perform various actions on each blog, such as:
- Writing a new post: Just click on the orange Pencil icon on your Dashboard to access the Post Editor.
- Viewing your posts: The gray Post List icon will take you to a list of your published and drafted posts for a specific blog.
- Catching up on your favorite blogs: Below the list of your own blogs, you’ll see a list of the blogs you follow with an excerpt from their latest posts.
- Everything else: Check out the drop-down menu next to the Post List icon for a quick link to:
- Overview
- Posts
- Pages
- Comments
- Stats
- Earnings
- Layout
- Template
- Settings
Note that the Earnings tab will only show if
AdSense supports your language.
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Overview
On the
Overview tab, you can see your blog’s activity, news and tips from the Blogger team, and recent Blogs of Note.
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Write your post
Once you've signed in to Blogger, you'll see your dashboard with your list of blogs. Here's what you need to do:
- Click the orange pencil icon to write a new post, and enter anything you want to share with the world.
-
Next, you'll see the Post Editor page. Start by giving your post a title (optional), then enter the post itself:
-
When you're done, click the Preview button at the top to make sure it's ready to go, and then click the Publish button to publish your post.
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Add an image
You can add an image from your computer or the Web to your blog.
Click the image icon in the Post Editor toolbar. A window appears
prompting you to browse for an image file on your computer, or enter the
URL of an image on the Web.
Once you've selected your image, you can then choose a layout to determine how your image will appear in your post:
- The 'Left', 'Center', and 'Right' options allow you to customize the way your blog text will flow around your image.
- The 'Image size' options will determine how large the image will appear within your post.
Click
UPLOAD IMAGES to add your image, and then click
DONE
when the notification window appears telling you that 'Your image has
been added.' Blogger will then return you to the post editor, where
you'll see your image ready to be published to your blog.
You can also publish images to your blog using your mobile device, Google's free photo software
Picasa, or a third-party service like
flickr.
Learn more
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Add a video
To add a video to your blog post, click the film strip icon in the
Post Editor toolbar above where you compose your blog text. A window
appears prompting you to 'Add a video to your blog post.'
Click
Browse to select the video file from your
computer that you'd like to upload. Note that Blogger accepts AVI, MPEG,
QuickTime, Real and Windows Media files and that your video must be
less than 100MB in size.
Before uploading your video, add a title in the 'Video Title' box
and agree to the Terms and Conditions (you'll only have to do this the
first time that you upload a video with Blogger). Then click
UPLOAD VIDEO.
While your video uploads, you'll see a placeholder in the post
editor showing where your video will appear. You'll also see a status
message below the post editor letting you know that your upload is in
progress. Depending on the size of your video, this usually takes about
five minutes. When it is complete, your video will appear in the post
editor.
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Customize
Your template is a fun way to customize your blog. When creating a
new blog, you're first asked to choose a default template, this is the
basic design of your blog. You can choose from many templates for your
blog; simply pick the one that best fits your needs.
Once on the
Template tab, you can either click on the orange
Customize
button to get started with our easy-to-use WYSIWYG (“What you see is
what you get”) template designer, or choose one of our many default
templates. If you’d like to edit the HTML of your blog, just click the
gray
Edit HTML button.
In addition, you can
customize your blog's design using our intuitive drag-and-drop interface. You can also add powerful gadgets such as slideshows, user polls, or even
AdSense ads.
If you want more precise control over your blog's layout, you can also
use the Edit HTML feature. To edit your blog's layout, follow these
steps:
- Click Layout from the drop-down menu on your dashboard below the blog you would like to customize.
- From there, click Edit to edit existing gadgets, or Add a Gadget to add new ones.
- To add a new gadget after you've clicked Add a Gadget,
simply click the plus sign next to your desired gadget. You can choose
from gadgets by category, or search for a specific gadget in the top
right of the pop-up window.
- Once you've added the necessary information to your selected gadget, click the orange Save arrangement button. Your layout changes will appear instantly.
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Privacy and permissions
By default, your blog is completely public, and can be read by
anyone on the internet. However, if you want to keep it private, you can
do that, too. You can change these settings on the
Settings | Basic tab.
- Under the 'Blog Readers' section, you'll probably see 'Anybody'
selected as the default. When you change this to 'Only these readers,'
you'll get an Add Readers button.
- Click the Add Readers button and then enter the
email address of a person to whom you'd like to grant access to your
blog. To add multiple people, separate their addresses with commas.
- For each address entered, the Google Account associated with that
address will be given access to view your blog. If an address is not
associated with an account, that person will receive an invitation email
with a link allowing them do one of three things:
- Sign in to an existing account.
- Create a new account.
- View your blog as a guest (no account required).
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Posts
