# Setting Up a Blog

To set up a blog for a journal, use the "Blog Settings" menu item in the Journal menu. That will open up a new window and ask you for the URL of your blog. Enter in the URL as you would view it in Safari, such as `https://yourblog.wordpress.com/`. MacJournal will try to detect what kind of blog it is from that. MacJournal recognizes many popular blog types, such as Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr. When finished, MacJournal will display the settings that it will use.

Click on the "Options" tab at the top to customize how MacJournal will use the blog.

- Most blogs don't accept images by default, but MacJournal can be configured to send images elsewhere and link the images in the blog post. You can set up an FTP, SFTP, Picasa, or Imgur server to accept the images.
- Some blogs may require changing how the text is encoded when transmitting it. Unicode is the best default for most servers.
- Use the Formatting line to change how MacJournal interprets what you write when sending to the server. By default, MacJournal takes the styled text that you write and converts it to HTML. By switching it to None, MacJournal will send the text that you write without any conversion. Use the Markdown option to treat your text as Markdown and convert it to HTML that way.
- "Escape non-ASCII Characters" causes MacJournal to convert certain characters outside of Roman alphanumerics in a way that will be more compatible with certain servers. Try this checkbox if certain characters do not show up correctly on your blog or if there are errors when sending the entry.
- "Escape < and >" causes MacJournal to convert any < and > in a way that will still be visible in the same way on your blog. These characters are part of HTML, which is the way web pages work. If you want to write raw HTML in your entry and have that show on the blog, turn this option off.
- "Format Line Breaks" will control how MacJournal deals with line endings in your text. With this this enabled, MacJournal will add HTML tags to separate lines. Some blogs prefer to handle this themselves. MacJournal will try to pick a good default value.
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