Open Live Writer blogging tool is now in the Windows Store

By John Callaham
last updated

TheOpen Live Writer blogging tool has been released as a Windows 10 PC app in the Windows Store. The team behind the app used Microsoft's Desktop App Converter tool to make this possible.

Microsoft made the announcement that Open Live Writer was coming to the Windows Store on Monday as part of its Ignite IT conference. Here's a quick description:

Open Live Writer is like Word for your blog. Open Live Writer is a powerful, lightweight blog editor that allows you to create blog posts, add photos and videos then publish to your website. You can also compose blogs posts offline and then publish on your return. Open Live Writer works with many popular blog service providers such as WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Moveable Type, DasBlog and many more.

Microsoft first released the desktop app many years ago as Windows Live Writer. Earlier this year, a team composed of several Microsoft employees revived the app and changed its name to Open Live Writer, while also turning the app into an open source project.

Thanks to Jeffrey for the tip!

Download Open Live Writer from the Windows Store (opens in new tab)

John Callaham
John Callaham
10 Comments
  • Noice
  • Didn't Scott hanselman submit it live as part of his demo at Ignite in fact?
  • Right, its not Microsoft's, its yet another good product they had but shelved and was taken over by a fan. Calling it Microsoft's does Scott a disservice.
  • This makes no sense. It should be an UWP app or an add-on for Word Mobile or Word 2016.
  • This software is based on a fork of Windows Live Writer.
  • I know. It's an interesting message to developers that even Microsoft doesn't invest in new UWP apps but takes the lazy path and re-releases an old app that doesn't even take advantage of the new app platform or first party hardware.
  • It's not Microsoft, it's a group of people (some of whom are MS employees) taking a tool that hasn't been supported in a while and making it available again.
  • Does it produce HTML and sites with multiple pages, for those who upload their own sites rather than use a blogging service? I don't get why Microsoft has stripped almost all of the website-creating features out of Publisher. That has been vexing.
  • Awesome! Stuff...
  • Shame they couldn't have done this for Windows Live Messenger, lol.