Windows Live Writer is an oft-overlooked component of the Windows Live Essentials application bundle (also including such gems as Live Photo Gallery, Live Movie Maker, and Live Mesh). If you have a blog (in my case running on WordPress), I highly recommend it for one really important reason: it makes adding images to posts 100% easier.

Think of it like a trimmed down version of Microsoft Word (more like Wordpad really) that can be used to compose blog posts. You can format text according to styles, add hyperlinks effortlessly, perform spell checking – but most importantly – paste images right into your post. Like this one:

You can the resize, crop, etc.

The contents of the Insert tab alone are worth your time:

I could be the only person left who primarily posted using the HTML editor, but if there are any other curmudgeons out there who have been skipping the visual aids because of all the extra steps… well give Windows Live Writer a try!