Getting Started with a Blogger Invitation

The tutorial below outlines how to start contributing to a Blogger web-log (or "blog") when someone sends you an invitation to join. It assumes no previous knowledge of "blogging" (or tries not to). Please let me know (frjustin{at}ehewlett.net) if anything is unclear. Larger versions of the screen-shots can be obtained by clicking on the image you want to see.


We'll start with the invitation e-mail you received. (If you didn't receive one, or if you lost it, e-mail me [frjustin{at}ehewlett.net] and I'll send you another one.) Read it if you like, but all you really have to do is click on the link (the blue underlined gobbledy-gook)!


Clicking on the link should take you to a page that looks like this. Since you probably don't have a Blogger account yet, click on the "Create an Account" button at the bottom.


Clicking on the "Create an Account" button should take you to (surprise! surprise!) this "Create an account" page.


Fill in all the required information on the form, making sure to check the "I accept the Terms of Service" button at the bottom (I suppose you could even read the terms of service before accepting them), then click the large orange "Continue" arrow in the bottom right-hand corner.


Clicking on that "Continue" arrow will take you right to a page that Blogger calls your "Dashboard". This page shows all the "blogs" (web-logs) that you own or help to contribute to. Right now you're probably only contributing to one - the one you were invited to join (in this example, the underlined "St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church" blog). Let's start adding information to the web-site! Click on either the underlined name of the blog or on the big green plus sign underneath "New Post".


Clicking on the blog name or the "New Post" plus sign should take you to a page that looks like this. (If the "Edit Posts" tab is black instead of the "Create" tab, just click on the word "Create" to get to this screen. We'll deal with the "Edit Posts" tab a bit later.)


Each bit of information (be it an article, an essay, a blurb, or whatever) you add to the weblog is called a "post", and will usually have its own title. Type in a title for your post in the "Title" field, then type in whatever information you want your post to contain in the large rectangle. If you have more information than will fit in the rectangle, don't worry, a scroll-bar will appear and you'll be able to keep on going. You can cut information out of other programs (like MS Word) and paste them into the large rectangle, as well, and you can make things bold, italic, etc. by highlighting and clicking on the "b", "i", and other buttons at the top of the large rectangle. If you want to see how your post will look, click "Preview", then click the "Hide Preview" link (that will appear while the preview is visible) to get back to your editing. If you are an HTML code wizard, you can click the "Edit HTML" tab to view and edit the code that is used to format your post. (Click the "Compose" tab to get back to What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get-style editing.) Finally, when you're all finished typing and editing your post, click the orange "Publish Post" button on the bottom, and the new post will be sent to your web-site.


Once you click the "Publish Post" button, you will see a screen that looks like this for a few seconds. The "Files published" percentage should start to go up eventually, if it doesn't right away - so be patient!


Once Blogger has finished sending your post to the web-site, you should see a screen that looks like this. (If you don't, contact the person who set up your blog for you!) Click on the "View Blog" tab, or, better, on the "(in a new window)" link to see what your blog looks like now!


Here is your new blog! Our sample post has been added successfully. It's not a very interesting post, however, so we'll proceed right to the editing/deleting portion of the tutorial in order to delete it! Click the "Back" button on your browser if you clicked "View Post" to get here - or, if you clicked on the "(in a new window)" link, close this new window by clicking the "X" in the upper-right corner of your browser program.


Once you're back to this page, click the "Edit Posts" button to get to the page where we can edit or delete posts.


Here is the "Edit Posts" page, with the five most recent posts to our blog listed from most- to least-recent. (You can change how many posts are shown by clicking the drop-down arrow beside the word "Show".) If you click on the "Edit" button you will be taken to a page that looks exactly like the "Create" page we saw, but with all the information from that post in the page, so you can edit and re-publish it. We just want to delete our new post, so we'll click on the "Delete" link instead. (Notice that we can only edit/delete posts that we have added to the blog.)


After clicking on the "Delete" link, Blogger will show you a copy of the post and ask you whether you are sure you want to delete the post. We are sure. Click "Delete It"!


Once again we see the "Publishing is in progress" screen for a few seconds...


And, once again, you should see the "Your blog published successfully" page when Blogger is done. If you click on the "(in a new window)" link, you should see that your post has disappeared. If it hasn't yet, try clicking the "Refresh" button (usually represented by two circling arrows) in your browser's toolbar.

And that's it! You should now know everything you need to know to get started contributing to the blog to which you have been invited. Happy blogging!