#### MarsEdit Help | Solutions By Topic | Q&A

# Creating a New Post

Click the New Post icon in the toolbar to create a new post. A post editor window will appear:

Note: The window’s appearance will vary slightly, depending on the features your blog system supports.

### Writing your post

Write your post in the large text area. You may edit your post in plain HTML, or using the rich editor. You can also switch between these modes at any time by selecting Post > Edit Plain Text or Post > Edit Rich Text. Use the Format menu to add common formatting styles to your content. You can also use arbitrary HTML to define powerful custom formatting macros.

Click the Options button to reveal a side-panel which may contain, depending on your blog system, categories, text filters, comments status, and other options.

Additional fields such as Tags, Excerpt, Keywords, and Slug are available in the main content area, but are hidden by default. To show them, select the pertinent item from the View menu. These fields will remain visible or hidden for each of your blogs, until you change their visibility again. For WordPress and other blog systems that implement the WordPress API, you can configure custom fields which appear along with the standard fields in this section.

Some blog systems support the notion of "splitting" a post. For these systems, you can write the post in two sections: body and extended. The body is typically shown on the blog’s front page, with a link to the extended content. This feature is sometimes called "Continue Reading", and the division between Body and Extended is sometimes called a "more tag."

You can split a post by selecting Post > Split Post. To switch between the sections, select Post > Edit Body or Post > Edit Extended Text. If you're not sure about this feature, it’s probably best to leave your posts unsplit.

Other options such as Enclosure and the Post Date can be edited from the Post menu.

### Previewing your post

To get a sense for how your post will look on the web, click the Preview button in the toolbar. This will open a separate window showing your post with HTML content rendered, and any pertinent text filter applied.

The preview window can be customized to look more like your published blog. See Editing Your Preview Template for more information.

### Posting to your blog

When you’re finished writing, click the Send to Blog button. MarsEdit will send the post to your blog, where it will either be published, or saved as a draft, depending on your settings. Click the View On Web button in the toolbar to open the blog in your web browser.