This seems amazingly simple. Once you know the trick (and there is a trick) blogging from Word 2007 to my blogging tool of choice – Subtext – is incredibly simple. Just click the Publish button on the toolbar and away you go. The trick is that you need to configure it like so:
First Click Manage Accounts and choose New (or if this is your first time Word will get here for you), then:
Replace the Blog Post URL with http://your_blog_url_here/services/metablogapi.aspx and then click on Picture Options.
Now for the tricky part. There is a known bug in Word 2007 that prevents pictures from being successfully uploaded with the default options. Until the bug is fixed the workaround relies on you having some sort of access to the folder where the pictures are stored. In my case I am lucky enough to have access using a UNC path to the folder location directly on the server. If I didn't I would have set up some sort of ftp folder or an HTTP upload site. As it is, with the UNC path of the server folder, I can persuade Word to upload the embedded files to the right location, like so:
Hopefully that helps at least one other poor soul struggling with this problem.
Now, with that out of the way… start blogging!