SpeedBreeze

A while back, I talked about putting together a comparison of the blogging features in Windows Live Writer and Word 2007. Well, here it is!

Comparison #1: Price

Word 2007

Word 2007 comes as a component of Microsoft Office 2007. Office 2007 costs $150 minimum (Home and Student Edition).

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer is 100% FREE, no strings attached.

The Verdict

Windows Live Writer is better–it costs nothing and is thus less restrictive for bloggers with smaller budgets.

Comparison #2: Supported Blogging Websites

Word 2007

It supports Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, and Community Server.

Windows Live Writer

It supports Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Moveable Type, and Community Server.

The Verdict

The two clients are pretty equal here, the only difference is that Word 2007 does not appear to support Moveable Type.

Comparison #3: Post Editing

Word 2007

Posts are shown in Word’s “web view”. This doesn’t show what posts will look like after they have been posted to your blog.

Windows Live Writer

Posts are shown as they will look when they are posted to your blog This feature seems to work extremely well and is extraordinarily helpful.

The Verdict

I have found the Windows Live Writer feature that allows you to see your posts as they will look when they are posted to your blog to be very, very helpful. In Windows Live Writer, you don’t have to guess what different styles of headers and other types of formatting will look like on your blog.

Comparison #4: Ease of Use

Word 2007

Word 2007 features a completely new layout, featuring a new tab-based toolbar called the “Ribbon”. In my opinion, the layout is fairly intuitive; users of earlier versions of Word will probably find the new layout confusing, though.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer has, for the most part, a fairly intuitive interface. However, minor inconsistencies in the layout of features, especially in the image settings section of the sidebar, are a bit annoying. Most of these issues are not a big deal and will probably fixed in later beta releases of WLW.

The Verdict

The two blogging clients are pretty evenly matched. However, in my opinion, Word 2007 is slightly easier to use.

Comparison #5: Image Editing Capabilities

Word 2007

Word 2007 has a wide range of image editing capabilities, ranging from simple cropping tools an image filters to rotations and other 3-D effects. Word 2007 does not have a way to watermark photos.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer has some basic image editing tools and effects, such as sepia tone, color pop, black and white, etc. The coolest image editing capability in WLW is the “watermark” feature. It allows you to overlay text on to of an image to show that you made the photo. This is a very important feature.

The Verdict

Though many of the image editing features in Word 2007 were nice, I felt that the range of effects in WLW was sufficient for most blogging applications. I also felt that the “watermark” feature in WLW was extraordinarily important and that it was a major issue that Word did not have it.

Comparison #6: Integration with WordPress.com

Word 2007

Word 2007 has some basic posting, image upload, and editing features. It does not have any way to go to the dashboard or other WordPress.com specific page.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer has posting, image upload, and editing features. WLW has links to the dashboard, blog stats page, comments page, and friends surfer page on WordPress. It also, as I mentioned above, downloads and shows your blog’s theme during editing.

The Verdict

Windows Live Writer has far better integration with WordPress.com than Word 2007.

Comparison #7: Special Features

Word 2007

Word 2007 allows you to add SmartArt diagrams, Excel tables, Excel charts, add clip art, and add WordArt to your blog posts.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer allows you to add Windows Live Local maps (Microsoft’s competitor to Google Maps) to your blog posts. These maps can be shown in both a road-map style and a bird’s-eye-view style. WLW also shows, as I have mentioned twice before, your posts as they will look when they are posted to your blog. WLW can also split a post into multiple smaller posts.

The Verdict

There is no easy way to compare the special features for WLW and Word. The feature set for each of these applications is really geared towards different types of users.

Comparison #8: Support

Word 2007

Word 2007 has a few really nice instructional pages on the Microsoft Office website. You can also find information on various blogs and websites. I have also posted a few articles about on this blog about basic setup, image manipulation, SmartArt and Excel charts in Word.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer does not have as nice of online help pages as Word 2007; it has a relatively small help file on the Windows Live Website. If you can’t find information that you need there, you’ll have to search the Microsoft WLW blog or look at other blogs and websites. I have also posted a couple of articles on this blog about basic setup and image manipulation in WLW.

If you need extra functionality, you can look at the the Windows Live Gallery. There, you can find many free plugins for WLW and other Windows Live programs.

The Verdict

Windows Live Writer are pretty equally matched in this area. Word 2007 has more online help information than WLW. However, WLW has an array of free plugins and extensions.

Comparison #9: Best For…

Word 2007

Word 2007 is best for the occasional blogger who doesn’t want to use a web-based editor or download another program for blogging. Word 2007 is also good for those who need integration with other Office products, such as Excel.

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live Writer is best for the frequent blogger who wants to make use of all of the features that their blogging site has to offer, wants consumer-centric features, and wants to have some basic image manipulation capabilities.

Comparison #10: Overall

The Verdict

In my opinion, Windows Live Writer is the best option for most bloggers; WLW has some cool features, the ability to make full use of the features of blogging sites such as WordPress, and the ability to download free plugins to extend its capabilities.

Some bloggers may need integration with the rest of the Office 2007 programs. If this is the case, then use Word 2007.