Writing made easy with Writing Helper
We know the hardest part of blogging is actually writing posts. And most blogging software, and even word processors, do little to help writers write. Today at WordPress.com we’re proud to announce a new kind of feature, aimed at helping the writing process, called Writing Helper. It’s a new box that appears underneath the edit box on the Add a Post Screen (the entire box can be dragged to the right side if you want it next to the edit box, instead of underneath).
First up is Copy A Post. You can now reuse the hard work of previous posts as the basis for the next one. Simply hit the Copy A Post button, pick a post, and we copy the title, content, tags and categories for you, saving you steps. If you often have similarly tagged or formatted posts, this will save much time. We will always show your most recent posts in the list, but you can search by title too.
Next is Request Feedback. You can now share a private draft of a post with a friend before it is published. They can help you find typos, suggest improvements and give advice to make the post amazing before you publish it to the world.
When you click on Request Feedback, you can enter email addresses of friends who are willing to help. They’ll receive a special private link to see your draft, where they can leave feedback on your post (see image above). Their feedback will appear in your post’s Request Feedback area when it arrives, so you can make changes to your draft accordingly.
For more about how Writing Helper works, read the support pages for Copy a Post and Request Feedback.
And if you have ideas for other Writing Helper features you’d like to see, leave us a comment.
April 27th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
That’s so winning!
April 27th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
I don’t really like copying posts or tags. Every article should be an individual one, shouldn’t it?
But the feedback feature is pretty cool as I often ask friends to read my article before publishing it.
April 27th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Maik: Everyone is different of course, but some bloggers reuse the same tags often, or have 3 or 4 types of posts they do every week, each with it’s own common set of tags or categories. Same is true, we think, for general formatting and layout of posts.
And we appreciate your feedback on the feedback feature
April 27th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
That’s awesome! I can also go on record as being one of the many bloggers that will use this helpful feature. WordPress Rocks!
April 27th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Woo! Thank you WordPress
April 27th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Another cool feature from WP
April 27th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Wow! Amazing feature! My friends can now help me write posts!
April 27th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
The feedback feature is cool (I did this recently, via email), but instead of the Copy a Post thing, I’d rather have post templates. All the formatting, tags, categories saved, but without having to delete/overwrite all the content.
April 27th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Copy A Post is basically a simple version of templates. You simply select the sections you are replacing, and start typing to both delete them and inherit the formatting style they had.
April 27th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Very cool and handy! I hope the next update will be monkeys that write the post for me!
April 27th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
re: comment about “men”
why don’t you write about “wild women”
now, that you have subject matter,
which you did not have before, something to copy…
go girl.
April 27th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Wow! Everythings going to be better here! It saved me already a lot of time with linking posts. And I loved the contactform, but this feature?
I guess, it is almost the best. I will try it out and look how it works, but I like such stuff, becaus it helps blogging
Thanks, thanks, thanks
April 27th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Pretty awesome feature!
It’s gonna be a Jetpack feature for self-hosted blogs soon, right?
I hope so…
April 27th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Hi Harry:
We will of course consider putting this into Jetpack in the future. Thanks.
April 27th, 2011 at 4:00 pm
I love these new features! Thanks WP!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
This is really useful for updating information on older posts, particularly ones in which technology moved ahead and the old post isn’t up-to-date. Of course, I’m assuming that this doesn’t work for copying other people’s post–copyright is often sacrificed to blog ratings.
April 27th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Hi Quinn:
No, you can’t copy other people’s posts through this feature. If we did that, it’d have to be called Steal a Post.
April 27th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Hope both features are hitting Jetpack as soon as possible!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Thank you, thank you, Thank! You!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
thank you for sending this I had no idea I was to get a feed back before publishing now I know
April 27th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
looking for someone to read my posts before posting, lol
thank you for the new options!
Marc
April 27th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Looks like a real timesaver – thanks.
April 27th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
MMmm…. I love new functionality! Keep them commit please!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Its the smallest of things that make wordpress a better blogging arena. Good job guys.
April 27th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
I have such a unique spin on life and the struggles I deal with (and helping those like me through it) that I am not sure how it would work for me. Fans would go on my website and say, “what the hell?!” and then run away. The whole attraction of my sight is the unexpected weirdness one comes across. How would I be able to find other people’s posts just as nutty? It wouldn’t be “steal a post” , it would be “oh God, what has our world come to?”
April 27th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Great features! Thanks WordPress.com , i love this!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Verry cool. I like it
April 27th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
you know how you often have the problem of remembering a word? as in, you know what it means and you can think of synonyms but you can’t get the exact word? that sort of disturbs my entire thought-process. it would be great if we had a feature to look at the synonyms of a word.
April 27th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Amazing feature thank you WordPress team
April 27th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Can’t wait to try it! Sounds like a big help. Thanks Team Dudes for working for US!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Now even I can write half-decent blogs!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Thanks, this is a tool I’ll be using.
April 27th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
@Rashmi
Agreed 100%
April 27th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Hi, thanks for the tips. The “Request Feedback” feature is going to be really useful!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
For someone new to blogging this is a fantastic feature. I’m a fan!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
These are absolutely amazing features. Since I publish fiction on my blog, I’m sure I’ll use the ‘Request Feedback’ often. It’ll help me centralize the comments of my Beta readers. Thanks!
April 27th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Wow! The feature “Copy Post” is a great help for me, because I quote a lot from older posts of mine, specially the URLs. Would be really useful if you could make that window a pull down, so that more than 20 postings can be shown at a time. Can’t be that difficult to accomplish! TIA
April 27th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Hey did you just manage to steal a march on me! … check this out. … http://elasticwords.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/stuff-that-future-should-bring-stelg-3-a-ghost-writer/
It’s eerie how some of the thoughts overlap between my post and this new feature!
April 27th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
This is a very useful feature. I tend for example to use the same categories, as many as 10 or more, for specific posts, and it is a hassle having to check all of them with each new post.
April 27th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Perhaps this option should be visible/usable somehow when one browses the posts from the front-end? I.e. via the wordpress bar on top? For example, when one finds a post they like, they can start one just like it with one click from the frond-end.
April 27th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
This is great! I cannot wait to try it out. Thank you for developing cool yet useful features for us to use!!!
April 27th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Hmmm, will this be available in self-hosted installes as well? Just upgrader my install to 3.1.2 (newest release) but cant fint this feature!
April 27th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Joachimmg: This feature is currently only available on WordPress.com (as this is the blog for WordPress.com). As you can see in the other comments, we will of course consider this feature for inclusion in a future release of Jetpack.
April 27th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
This is great because i do a few same type of articles a day this will save time because i find tagging etc very tedious. Especially when my mind is racing to get whats in my head out.
Ok what id like to see is after auto spell some auto correct too. for instance to put capitals in automatically after a fool stop and to put apostrophes in too. and much more. also to auto correct words as we type them, it would just speed things up a bit. plz
April 27th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Mind = blown. This is awesome. Thank you for reminding why I use Word Press and not blogger. Cheers!
April 27th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Amazing feature thank you, This is a very useful feature!
April 27th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
AWESOME TOOL MASHALLAH WELL DONE WP WELL DONE ^_^
April 27th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
This is special!
April 27th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
I think these both are great ideas. Since my reviews are often of parts of a series (i.e. Doctor Who, Highlander, etc.), and I try to keep the same format for each one, the “copy a post” feature would come in handy. Also because my review format changes slightly for whether I’m reviewing a book, movie, short story, or TV show, and I often have to go back to check the specific format version I’ve used previously.
April 27th, 2011 at 6:09 pm
I loved it to say the least!!
Very well done… yay!!
Also loved how I can upload bigger image in KOI theme!
Thank you
April 27th, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Sounds like a great innovation, and I will definitely try it!
April 27th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
This is fantastic. It will really help with tags when I blog a series on a specific topic. Wish I’d had it sooner but better now than never!
Thanks again!
April 27th, 2011 at 7:04 pm
since i have several recurring themes on my blog, i shall immensely benefit from this update. you guys just never stop impressing me. part of the reason why wordpress.com has such a fantastic community built on it. kudos to you guys for keeping rolling in the features.
April 27th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Would like to be able to create and incorporate boiler plate into postings.
April 27th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
i wonder if this is such a good thing?
April 27th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Why wonder? Give it a try. Only way to know for sure.
April 27th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
This is wonderful! I look forward to the possibilities!
April 27th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
I don’ t know that this is helpful. What I *do* know is that WP needs to address the screwy wsyiwig/HTML inconsistencies that make posting content a bitter pill.
April 27th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Hi Prattle:
Sorry you’re having a screwy experience. You can always turn the visual editor off, which isn’t a perfect solution, but you’re guaranteed predictable behavior there. If you have a more specific complaint, please file a support request and we’ll see what we can do.
April 27th, 2011 at 7:31 pm
Great feature! As a writing coach, this will be really helpful for my clients and myself! I will also be able to use this in my college and blogging classes!
April 27th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Love this because my writing is below average so I would definitely benefit from the help. I love the idea of creating post from existing information brilliant. Thanks
Ing
April 27th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Hi, thanks for the tips. The “Request Feedback” feature is going to be really useful!
April 27th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
I love all of these changes..
April 27th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
i like these new feature .thnx for sending this
April 27th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
I love this!! If only there was a version for my papers in school!!!
Thank you wordpress, you guys are the BEST!
April 27th, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Ironically yesterday I mention in one of my posts that I am not a professional writer, but do try to write better. The next day WordPress releases the writing helper to help improve blogging which I find funny because its like they knew what I wrote. Somehow I feel special about all of this (^o^) though I never write on the WordPress site itself so will probably rarely ever use this tool. Not sure if the writing helper tool are on other programs since I use Windows Live Writer to post. I do really want to try the feedback option.
April 27th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Great idea. I can’t wait for the Jetpack feature to be released!
April 27th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
I agree with Maik. Indeed each post of my blog is different, so Copy a Post feature will not work for me. However, I might try Feedback.
In any case, it is nice of you to provide us with these new options.Thanks!
April 27th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
Great job.
Now can you teach my friends to spell, write and edit?
April 27th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Dear WordPress: There is such a thing as too many features. http://tiny.cc/lqqv7
April 27th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
American Elephant: We do make it easy to turn Writing Helper, and most features off. For Writing Helper, or any metabox on the Edit a Post screen, click on the Screen Options link at the top, and uncheck the ones you don’t want.
April 27th, 2011 at 9:30 pm
That is what is up! I would like to bake a cake for whoever’s idea that was.
April 27th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
I like Chocolate cake. Frankly I like all cakes as long as they are in front of me and I have a fork in my hand. But many folks contributed to this, so you’ll have to slice the cake so we can all partake.
April 27th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
This is very useful! Lately most of my blog is reports of my daily writing, and I always have to look at previous “report” posts to make sure that I don’t forget an element or a tag. It’d be nice to have at least the tags already taken care of for those.
April 27th, 2011 at 9:33 pm
As a novice to blogging, I would add that I am very excited about these additions. I am especially fond of the idea that I will be able to request feedback prior to publishing a blog. Thanks wordpress
April 27th, 2011 at 9:55 pm
No matter how many times I re-read through a post I often don’t notice a typo. My husband calls it a ‘blind spot’. He says I have the post so firmly in my head that I often read out a missing word and don’t even notice it to be missing.
So the feedback feature will be great for me!! *Off to bed with a smiley face now*
April 27th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Awesome, that will help. But it makes me worry about having a ‘cookie-cutter’ post rather than unique and individualistic.
April 27th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
Some blogs naturally have 3 or 4 types of posts they do often – Copy A Post should make it easier and faster for them to do those standard post types. But of course the feature is optional, and you are free to make each post as unique as a snowflake.
April 27th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Fantastic edition, especially since I have a few blog series going on!
April 27th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
This is FANTASTIC. I am one of those that repeats the same type of post, and I was literally just wishing for something like this last week. (I apparently purchased the extra-powerful wishes last time.)
Question – Can you copy unpublished posts? So could I set up a template without the specific data, but the generic html/tags/etc? or does it have to be a published post? Don’t know why I’m asking, I guess I’ll just go try it and see…
And thanks!
April 27th, 2011 at 10:17 pm
We don’t charge for mind-reading services, but since they are a violation of our privacy policy, please keep it on the down low (shhhh).
Currently you can’t copy unpublished posts. We can see about adding drafts to the list. But currently if you repeat the same post, simply use your favorite one as the “template” to copy.
April 27th, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Awesome – I’ve been waiting for a peer review feature.
What would be even more useful would be a “reviewers list” that could be kept so that we don’t have to enter email addresses each time.
April 27th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
Loving the ‘request feedback’ feature!! Next thing you know we’ll be sharing screens and editing each other’s posts in real-time…. Oops- did I just make a suggestion? Maybe too bleeding-edge? Nevermind. Thanks
!
K
April 27th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
Amazing! I saw the boxes show up earlier today (Ironically when I opened a previously pubbed post up to painstakingly copying all the tags and format I had used) and wondered what they were. Request Feedback will also be used by me. The computer I do most of my work at lacks email (long story), and jumping over to the other computer, and pulling all my stuff back up is a pain whenever I want to share my soon-to-be-latest post with someone I’m chatting with or whatever.
April 27th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Good, good stuff. Thank you.
April 27th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
I don’t know if I the copy will be a benefit but the feedback surely will.
Thanks for the innovative ideas!
April 27th, 2011 at 10:59 pm
Cool beans
April 27th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
This is a great tool. I hope it’s very useful.
April 27th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Been waiting for “copy a post”! YAY!
April 27th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Awesome. Saves me a few extra steps of copy/pasting/editing tags.
April 28th, 2011 at 12:01 am
Thanks. Its a really great feature.
*It’s
April 28th, 2011 at 12:17 am
Outstanding additions. I noticed these features today.
I particularly like the “Request Feedback” function. As someone who writes business posts for other blogs, this will beat the back and forth of review & edit emails, skype uploads, etc., that we go through each week.
This also helps me when I want a friend to take a look at one of my own blog posts for content, grammar, etc.
Thank you for simplifying my life. You rock!
April 28th, 2011 at 12:30 am
I noticed this cool little featured today. Of course i tried it out already without knowing what i was doing
I’m open to feedback anytime! Thanks!!!
April 28th, 2011 at 12:41 am
YES! less plugin more indiginous capability. Bravo.
April 28th, 2011 at 12:55 am
Fantastic! Great features to add. I’m especially excited about the copy feature.
April 28th, 2011 at 12:55 am
Great.. thanks!