Tutorial on Google Reader

I have been getting pleas for help with Google Reader so here are my best attempts to instruct you how to do it! If any one more competent than me wants to add anything please do comment. Instructions for Firefox first then Internet Explorer. Bear in mind that I can't see your comupter and so if you have problems it might be because your menus are set up differetly to mine - play around a bit!

First bear in mind that I am directed automatically to the UK sites of Google – I hope it is not substantially different if you are elsewhere .

Firefox users

1.Go to Google Reader and sign in. Open ana ccount if you need one. If you have a google account ( which you will if you use Blogger) it is the same sign in.

2.In my version there is a link “ Manage subscriptions” Click on that.

That will take you to a Settings page.

3.Click on Goodies at the top.

4.That will bring up an article to Add Google Reader to your Bookmark

Now, check first that you have the bookmarks tool bar open.

In Firefox click on View at the top then Toolbars then check the Bookmarks toolbar.

5.Then, you can use the little button that is in the Google Reader article under the line “To use the next bookmark, simply drag the link below to your bookmark bar.”

Do what it says – drag it to the word Bookmarks.

I found that I automatically got a new icon “Next” appearing at the top of my screen.

6.Then do exactly the same thing with the Subscribe button which is also in the Google reader article.

7. Go to some blogs you like. When you get to each of them click the subscribe button. It will take you to the Google reader page and ask you to click the button there to subscribe. Obviously to only need to this once for each blog you read.

Note – I have been having problems on and off with this button. If you get a message saying Ooops no feed when you try to drag it try later – it eventually worked for me but now tonight I get the same message again. Meanwhile you can manually subscribe by going into Google Readers and using the Add subscription button and just typing in the blog address to start you off.

8. To read your blogs in the future you can just click on the next icon in Firefox and it takes you to the next updated post. When you run out of new posts it (rather scarily!) tells you that you have reached the end of the internet! The advice you get if you make one more lcik is however rather funny! (once)

The wonderful thing is that it also displays comments so you don’t even have to click to see those. When you first subscribe to a blog it shows you several unread entries. ( Unread according to Google Reader that is– you may actually have read them if you have been to the blog directly. Just scroll through them to get Reader up to date with you and next time you will only see new posts.

Internet Explorer 7

1. You should have a little orange star on the left side of the browser. Click to open the Favourites center. You need this to stay in place so click the little green arrow to ‘pin’ the list in place.

(I vaguely remember in Internet Explorer 6 you do this from a drop down Favourites option in the menu bar. If (as one person who emailed complained) there is no reference to Favourites then I think you may be missing your menu bar. In that case go to The Icon for Tools ( over to the left of the screen) and click. From the menu that comes up you will then have an option menu bar – make sure that it checked.

Follow steps 1, 2 and 3 above

2. That brings up an Article about Google reader that has a little Next button and instructions to click and drag. Click and drag to the favourites column. Do the same for the subscribe button which is also in the article.
3. In the menu bar click on favourites, then Organize Favourites. Move the Next button and the Subscribe Button you just added to Favourites to the Links folder. Close down your favourites.
4. Now check where on Internet Explorer your Links option is. This is where I spent literally hours trying to work out the crucial next bit – how to get the Next and Subscribe buttons available at all times.
5. If you are like I was the Links option is a little word at the left of the screen with a double arrow. It is useless here! Go to View in the menu Bar, choose tool bars and uncheck Lock Toolbars. This allows you to drag things around. Drag the word Links over to the left under the word File and it should create a new line and show you what is in the Links folder. ( basically if you have the Links word somewhere were it has no space to expand you lose sight of the Next button. Bingo! Two new icons – Next and Subscribe.
6. Now, to read your blogs follow point 8 above.

Phew!

If you do not have either of the above browsers I suggest you get them - just Google them and it is easy to get the free downloads.

For those of you into Igoogle pages you can also add Reader to your portal page – but that is for another day!