I have gave up on the blogging thing for a while due to the pear pressure of writing and preparing tutorials on-line. But as business are becoming bloggers to attract audience to their sites, more tools are developed. I have tried a combination of tools I think work well together for on-line tutorial writers, photo-journalists, etc… With the combination I save time adding screenshots into my blog by pasting from clipboard.
I use OnePress Image Elevator plugin and Greenshot to copy and past my screen shots. Bloggers, web developers, teacher, lecturers, on-line course developers and copywriters alike will love this association of tools they are very helpful, you don’t need to:
- print Screen
- Open Paint or image editor
- past into image editor
- resize
- save
- then create a post
- upload
The guide bellow will show you how you can save time, giving you extra time to research or even write more articles.
This guide is for Windows users! The tools have been tested using WordPress hosted on a personal site and not www.wordpress.com.
Finding and Installing OnePress Image Elevator plugin for WordPress
- Log into your site admin panel
- Head to your Add New plugins window and search for OnePress Image Elevator
- Click install on the plugin and activate it
Finding and installing Greenshot
- Head to http://getgreenshot.org/downloads/ and download the software stable release
- I have downloaded the software and it’s safe to use, my antivirus software has not detected any risk. But it’s always advisable to download software from the publisher site, and not other advertiser sites, I would also strongly advise to run the check-up on the package once downloaded.
- Install the software
- The installation process is quite straight forward and does not require any special settings. During the installation you will be asked to select which plugin you you like to add with the installation, I have simply selected all plugins because I use most (Picassa, Flick, FotoBucket etc..).
- Where to find the software?
- WINDOWS users will find the tool on their task bar, in the notification tray
Other tools combination for site content writers
Using Greenshot
- To launch the tool, simply click on your notification tray
- The tool pop up will ask you what you want to do just click your option;
- I usually select the first one: Capture region
- Capture region lets you select the exact part you want to capture on your screen (for the example below I have selected my flickr photos stream without the web address)
- Once the software has captured your screen, a pop-up will appear and then ask you what do the capture
- save as
- save directly
- open in image editor
- copy to clipboard
- send to printer
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft OneNote
- Microsoft Power Point
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Excel
- Ms Paint
- OCR
- Upload to Box
- Upload to Flickr
- Upload to Photobucket
- etc…
- Just click on Copy to clipboard
Using your screen shot with WordPress
- Head to your WordPress Admin Panel and create a new post
- Start Writing your post
- The Image Elevator Plugin will appear on the top of you text editing panel
- To past your Screen shot just right click and paste or CTRL + v
- To edit your image for SEO just
The risk for artists, although the screenshot tool and other tools of this kind are excellent for content producers, I can see the risk for artists as it easily can copy images and there is not recognition what so ever for the artist. I can also see media students using these tools to cheat. But the tools were created with good intention, for people to save time with their work, so don’t forget to mention the site you got the images or you screen shots from when using these tools.