How to migrate to the New Blogger safely… and edit your template easily

Slide 1: How to migrate to the New Blogger safely… …and edit your template easily

Slide 2: • I you are still using your old Blogger account, you will have to sign in using a Google ID to be able to switch to New Blogger. • If you already have a Google Account, log in with your Google Account email address and password when prompted. • If you don’t have a Google account you will be given the option to create one. • Click HERE for more information

Slide 3: 1. Once you log in to Blogger with your Google ID, you’ll be in the dashboard. Click on “Template” for the blog you want to move to the New Blogger

Slide 4: 2. Right-click on the template and copy it (Ctrl+C) Then click on “Customize design” 2 1

Slide 5: 3. Click on “Upgrade your template”

Slide 6: 4. Open Notepad or another text application. Paste the template (Ctrl+V) and save this file on your hard disk

Slide 7: 5. You’ll be asked to choose a template. Save it.

Slide 8: 6. Once you’ve completed the upgrade you will have lost all the customizations you had added to your template. Don’t worry! Blogger saves your old template. But you won’t have to bother because you have saved it on your computer

Slide 9: 7. If you wish, from the HTML tag, you can choose to download the template to your hard disk. From that same window you can also upload the template you previously saved.

Slide 10:  Let’s see how to personalize each page element one by one

Slide 11: Click on Edit in the Navbar panel. You’ll be able to choose from 4 different colour combinations for your navigation bar.

Slide 12: Configure the Header if you want to change the title or description of your blog.

Slide 13: From the “Configure posts” box, you will be able to customize: ▼ the number of posts you want to show on the main page ▼ the date and time format ▼ whether comments will be visible or not ▼ whether you want to show the links to each of your posts, the Quick Editing button and the e-mail post links …

Slide 14: At the bottom of the box you’ll see a preview of what your posts will look like.

Slide 15: And now… The fun part…  Personalizing the sidebar!

Slide 16: To add a widget to your sidebar, click on “Add page element” and then choose one of the categories.

Slide 17: Let’s see how we can add a widget to the sidebar 1. Click on ADD TO BLOG in the HTML/JavaScript box 2. Paste the code in the pop-up window. OPTIONAL: type a heading for your widget

Slide 18: Once you’ve saved the changes, the box will show the heading you’ve typed or the default HTML/JavaScript name. You can then drag and drop the element wherever you want in the sidebar.

Slide 19: If you (like me) used to have a  pretty blog full of widgets, don’t despair! Open the text file where you saved your template, look for each widget code and copy it. Then click on Add Page Element, HTML/JavaScript and paste the widget code in the box.

Slide 20: • Remember to scroll down the page and spot the <!-- Begin #sidebar --> heading, where your sidebar code begins

Slide 21: If you click on the “About me” edit button, you can edit your profile and select the information you want to show on this blog.

Slide 22: In the Configure Blog Archive box, you have a choice of archive and date formats.

Slide 23: On the sidebar you already have 2 Link boxes. You can always add more by clicking on Add Page Element. Links are not deleted when you migrate to the new Blogger. An interesting feature is that links can be arranged alphabetically at the click of one button!

Slide 24: Easy, eh? Claudia Bellusci  February 2007 For Blogging for Beginners (EVO 2007)  (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bloggingforbeginners)