Contents at a Glance Introduction ............................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Setting Up Your Tumblr Blog ................................................5 Chapter 2: Creating Your First Post ...................................................... 21 Chapter 3: Deciding What Content to Post .......................................... 33 Chapter 4: Using the Dashboard ........................................................... 41 Chapter 5: Managing Posts and Messages ........................................... 53 Chapter 6: Following, Liking, and Reblogging .....................................65 Chapter 7: Interacting with Others ....................................................... 75 Chapter 8: Exploring Tumblr ................................................................. 91 Chapter 9: Discovering, Modifying, and Designing Themes ............ 111 Chapter 10: Ten Useful Third-Party Apps for Tumblr ...................... 129 Appendix: Tumblr Resources .............................................................. 141 Index........................................................................................................ 147 COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL 002_9781118335956-ftoc.indd2_9781118335956-ftoc.indd ixix 44/20/12/20/12 99:17:17 PMPM 002_9781118335956-ftoc.indd2_9781118335956-ftoc.indd x 44/20/12/20/12 99:17:17 PMPM Table of Contents Introduction . .1 About This Book ........................................................................ 2 Conventions Used in This Book ............................................... 2 Foolish Assumptions ................................................................. 3 Icons Used in This Book ............................................................3 Where to Go from Here ............................................................. 4 Chapter 1: Setting Up Your Tumblr Blog . .5 Creating Your Account ..............................................................6 Selecting Your Account Settings .............................................7 Setting Your Account Preferences .........................................11 Customizing Your Blog ............................................................13 Selecting a theme ...........................................................14 Setting the title and description .................................. 15 Customizing the appearance ........................................15 Creating pages ................................................................17 Selecting Advanced options ......................................... 18 Chapter 2: Creating Your First Post . .21 Exploring the General Posting and Formatting Options ..... 21 Using the sidebar posting options............................... 22 Understanding the text formatting options................ 23 Creating Different Types of Posts .......................................... 25 Text .................................................................................. 25 Photos ............................................................................. 26 Quotes ............................................................................. 28 Links ................................................................................ 28 Chats................................................................................ 29 Audio files ....................................................................... 30 Videos.............................................................................. 32 Chapter 3: Deciding What Content to Post . .33 Exploring Topics to Post .........................................................33 Creating versus Collecting Content ....................................... 35 Creating content ............................................................ 35 Collecting content.......................................................... 36 002_9781118335956-ftoc.indd2_9781118335956-ftoc.indd xixi 44/20/12/20/12 99:17:17 PMPM xii Tumblr For Dummies, Portable Edition Chapter 4: Using the Dashboard . .41 Using the Dashboard Menu .................................................... 42 Creating New Blogs ..................................................................43 New primary blog .......................................................... 43 New additional blog .......................................................43 Deleting blogs .................................................................46 Searching for Help ................................................................... 46 Editing Preferences ..................................................................47 Logging In and Out ...................................................................48 Getting to Know the Sidebar................................................... 48 Launching Your Site ................................................................ 50 Chapter 5: Managing Posts and Messages . .53 Editing and Deleting Posts ...................................................... 53 Editing a post ................................................................. 54 Deleting a post ............................................................... 55 Reviewing Messages ................................................................ 55 Adding the envelope icon to your Dashboard ........... 56 Viewing and managing messages ................................ 56 Making Drafts............................................................................ 58 Working with the Queue ......................................................... 59 Creating queued posts ................................................. 60 Editing queued posts .................................................... 61 Using the Mass Post Editor .....................................................61 Chapter 6: Following, Liking, and Reblogging . .65 Following Other Blogs ............................................................. 65 Becoming a follower ...................................................... 66 Viewing posts from blogs you’re following ................ 66 Viewing notes ................................................................. 67 Managing Followers of Your Blog .......................................... 68 Liking Posts ...............................................................................70 Reblogging Posts ......................................................................71 Adding Tumblr Share Buttons to a Non-Tumblr Site .......... 72 Chapter 7: Interacting with Others . .75 Asking and Answering Questions .......................................... 75 Enabling the Ask feature ............................................... 76 Asking a question........................................................... 77 Answering a question ....................................................78 Creating question posts ................................................79 002_9781118335956-ftoc.indd2_9781118335956-ftoc.indd xiixii 44/20/12/20/12 99:17:17 PMPM Table of Contents xiii Making and Accepting Submissions ...................................... 79 Enabling the Submit feature ......................................... 80 Submitting to a site ........................................................81 Responding to a submission ........................................ 82 Sending and Receiving Fan Mail .............................................84 Sending Fan Mail ........................................................... 85 Receiving Fan Mail ......................................................... 87 Attending Meetups................................................................... 88 Attending a Tumblr Meetup ......................................... 88 Scheduling a Tumblr Meetup ....................................... 89 Chapter 8: Exploring Tumblr . .91 Searching by Tags ....................................................................92 Exploring Tumblr by Category ...............................................94 Exploring the Wire .........................................................94 Exploring by listing ........................................................95 Checking Out Sites Featured on Spotlight ............................ 97 Searching for People on Tumblr ............................................ 98 Finding people using your address book ................... 98 Adding people to follow manually .............................100 Discovering Tumblr’s Goodies .............................................102 Using Tumblr’s Bookmarklet ......................................102 Installing Tumblr for your phone .............................. 105 Backing up your blog .................................................. 105 Linking to Facebook .................................................... 106 Publishing to Twitter ...................................................107 Audio posting by telephone ....................................... 107 Embedding your blog on another web page ............ 109 Chapter 9: Discovering, Modifying, and Designing Themes . .111 Exploring Tumblr’s Theme Garden ..................................... 112 Searching for themes .................................................. 112 Previewing themes ...................................................... 114 Installing themes ..........................................................115 Editing a Theme’s HTML ....................................................... 116 Examining your theme’s code ....................................116 Locating an element’s