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.
I am knew to this and if I can get use to it it will help me thanks
Nice feature but have to agree with the couple of people who thought the “Copy” idea would be more useful for pages. I use the pages like “mini sites,” and having the ability to use one as a template would save a lot of time. Thanks for the continuing innovation, though.
Copy now works on both posts and pages. Enjoy!
I am authoring pages even more often then posts. I suggest to add a feature “Copy Post as a Page” (I suspect it is easy to add), because I tend to convert (after some modifications) some of my most popular Posts into Pages. In this case Posts server role as testing ground: after it was “approved” by number of visitors and improved as result of their feedback they can be elevated to Pages which are proven to be interesting for visitors.
I also wondering (since WordPress allows to have more than one Blog under the same username) if it is possible to have a feature “Copy Post from my “Other” Blog to “This” Blog” with option to keep references to “Other” Blog? It allows to create a Web of Blogs and Posts.
And finally, if direction above is desirable, while not allow to have (instead of or in addition to the usual reference by URL which used anyway as a foundation of World-Wide-Web) a “Partial Embedded Copy (in form of Quote or Summary or first 255 characters or first 5 lines…) of somebody’s Post into your Post with some standard Creditation (Creditation Format can be designed by WordPress geniuses and approved by WordPress Lawyers if such kind exists)?
Pages are now fully supported. We haven’t thought about cpying posts from other blog you own yet, but we’ll keep it in mind. For the third request, you might want to lok into our reblogging option, as well as the Press This bookmarklet, which pretty much do what you asked fo.
I think that the writing helper is a good idea .There are times in writing when You need a little jump start and sometimes looking back on a title of tag to an article is just what you need to get the creative synthesis going and the imagination visualizing the subject matter for the next article or post. . And while I agree that writing needs to as individual as we are there is nothing wrong with using something that came out of our own creativity for a second or third time or more if it helps us to write the post and/or article and get the ideas across to our readers that we wish for them to perceive.
This will make blogging easier thanks for the info
thank u….!
Very useful, especially for collaborative work purpose that needs a team discussion for a draft article/post before it is published to public.
TQ
Awsome!!! I’m new to blogging so this is very helpful!!!!
A well-thought out time saving addition– most welcome. Thx!
Another request for the suggestion box (not relevant to this feature..but another time saver) — the ability to select and form thumbnails for one’s entire library of image files.
Imaging bloggers would love such a feature, because it would allow us to quickly set up a page of all our posted images. This, in turn, would be useful to the many visitors we get who really just want to view our blogged images, without reading the posts. The page could be accessed from the Menu.
…just a thought
Cool
http://misssukisworld.wordpress.com/
Great tools! Thanks… Really like the peer review feature!
Interesting. I have no evaluation as yet,. Nunitak will have to see how it works for me. Does it check grammar and spelling? Does it make suggestions? Nunitak knows how to spell but does make typos (result of aging typos, a new item most are not familiar with). I currently have an under par keyboard too, the best one I could find for my price range, but many letters drop out or reverse, even though I have a heavy touch.
But I will give it a try and see what happens. Thank you.
Grazie 1000!
Fabulous! I like this feaure. Thanks.
Good job. Thank you so much!!
Hey everyone
thy for this feature Scott!
You asked for some wishes:
I love to use mindmaps for producing my articles, so an implemented mindmap tool would be great
maybe thats useful
greets
nos piratos
just thought I’d let you know thatoine third of the screen in your message about writing helper has been erased, or is not showing up – rendering the message mostly unintelligible…
Looks good to me – can you hit refresh and try again?
Thank you for both of these useful and welcome features.
Blogging buddies:What a nice thing to write!
I don’t like the copy post idea, but I might use the feedback option sometime!
I have to get the hang of this whole blogging thing as I am a writer and I have not spent much time in this site but intend to start learning all of its features and meet new bloggers. Until then see you and a great article you have here.
Ciao
Magi
Hay
Any chance of making a version of request feedback that allows random strangers to make suggestions about unpublished drafts?
Not at the moment, but maybe. Spammers could be an issue, but we do have Akismet.