Writing beautiful blog posts in Gmail

Published 2 years ago by sai @ pretzelbox
The PretzelBox Blog is different from other blogging platforms in that it lets you compose and post to your blog, straight from your Gmail inbox. 

This way, you don't have to log into a blogging platform to write a post, navigate complicated editor options, and worry about file uploads. With PretzelBox, you focus on writing beautiful content while we make sure the resultant blog post looks great.

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Courtesy: Pixabay

That said, we would be amiss in not giving you any guidance on how to optimize your blog post to enhance its readability.

Drawing attention to specific pieces of content

Well formatted text, organized in a hierarchical way, can do wonders for your readability. To establish hierarchy, start by denoting the header as HUGE. For example, the above header of Drawing attention to specific pieces of content was marked as HUGE while this post was being written.

The next level in the hierarchy should be marked as LARGE.

Tip #1 - organize your content in a hierarchy 
See above for an example of how we used hierarchy to give you, dear reader, cues on what parts of the content should be read first. Tip #1 - organize your content in a hierarchy was marked as LARGE while this post was being written.

Tip #2 - use Blockquotes or indentation
Blockquotes or indenting text are a great way to keep the reader engaged by hinting at content further down in the post. Both Blockquotes and Indentation achieve the same result. Here is an example of a blockquote with liberal use of whitespaces to allow it to stand apart and draw attention to itself.



Beautiful images add visual cues to your content telling readers how to interpret your writing



Tip #3 - use different fonts for different types of content
Code or technical content can be written in Fixed Width, while imperative content can use SERIF. As citizens of the internet, we have become accustomed to using cues like fonts to quickly scan a document for items worth reading. 

Using Images

Beautiful images add visual cues to your content telling readers how to interpret your writing. Here are a few tips on how to use images effectively.

Tip #4 - use high resolution images
All images take the entire width of the blog. Using small screenshots can cause it to appear blurry like below.


Tip #5 - don't change the default image size
Gmail allows us to mark inline images as SMALL, BEST FIT, or ORIGINAL SIZE. By default, BEST FIT is selected. Leave it on that setting for best results.


Conclusion
Here are the five tips you can use to write beautiful posts that your readers will enjoy reading. And best of all, you never have to log into an blog post editor (unlike Wordpress) or use a Markdown editor to compose your post.

Happy blogging!


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