Microsoft has released a free program to help blog owners write posts. 

Windows Live Writer works with Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces, which launched earlier this month, and third-party blogging software such as Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad and WordPress. 

The software will auto-detect settings for most modern blog software, and gives a preview of how posts will look by downloading the HTML and CSS used to format entries.

For advanced use, bloggers can also view the HTML source code and tweak posts manually.

Photos can be inserted easily into entries, and the software will handle uploading images associated with each post.

Live Writer also integrates with Windows Live Local maps so that authors can easily add geographical data to their entries. 

"Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service," said J. J. Allaire, from the Windows Live Writer team, announcing the product on the Writer Zone blog. 

"Our goal in creating Writer is to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive and fun. Writer has lots of features which we hope make for a better blogging experience."