Brainlitter » How to edit an existing SharePoint blog post using Microsoft Word

How to edit an existing SharePoint blog post using Microsoft Word

In past posts, I’ve blogged about using Microsoft Word and Windows Live Writer (with its suite or sweet! of add-ins to enhance your blogs) to contribute to a SharePoint blog.  I even recently wrote about blogging to SharePoint from iPads/iPhones and other mobile devices using SharePlus.  Finally, although I wrote it for WSS/MOSS 2007, I still think knowledge blogging is the biggest thing some companies can do, to improve communications within, particularly tech companies that share lots of information, regularly.

However, one thing I’ve discovered is that folks aren’t aware of how to open “existing” blog posts using Microsoft Word (it’s a little more obvious in Windows Live Writer), if you wanted to update or change a post.

First, let’s recap how you register Word as a blog authoring tool for SharePoint

  1. I assume you already have a SharePoint Blog.  I also assume you have Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010 (support for blogs started with 2007).  Go to your Blog site
  2. Choose “Launch blog program to post” – yep, that’s it (after clicking ok to accept the image location).  Note however that Word can often get ‘trapped’ in the taskbar during this step, so look for the icon in your tray and click on it, if you find the program is not responding – don’t just keep clicking Winking smile

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Alternatively, you could open Word and choose File –> New –> Blog Post –> Create. Then you would choose Manage Accounts and add your blog account there.

Now on to opening a past SharePoint Blog Post in Microsoft Word for editing

  • Open Word and choose File –> New –> Blog Post –> Create (yes, I realize we aren’t creating a new blog post Winking smile, but I’ve yet to find a more intuitive way)

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  • Choose Open Existing from the Ribbon

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  • Find your blog post and open it. Note, the list only shows the last 20. I haven’t seen anywhere where this can be increased or a search option exists to find more (though Windows Live Writer offers that, so in a jam, switch authoring tools, if even for this scenario). But typically, if an edit is to be made, it is usually fairly recent following comments from blog readers

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Yep, that’s it.  Simple, but I get asked enough it deemed worthy of documenting the solution.

3 responses to “How to edit an existing SharePoint blog post using Microsoft Word”

  1. But it is only possible to open the last 20 blog entries. So this function is not worth anything.

    1. That’s a bit harsh 😉 More than 20 posts ago and I’d be hoping my blog post can stand on its own. Besides, there are a few places one can still edit. In the posts list itself and/or my favourite, to use/open with Live Writer (my preferred rich blogging tool anyways).

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