TypePad Lists or TypeLists as they are known, make it fun and easy to create lists of things (which then can be used on your blog).

If you want to create a TypeList, you are creating a separate entity that doesn’t belong to any one blog. This is because any one TypeList can be used by multiple blogs if you so wish. 

Look for the TypeLists tab and select it.

Creating a TypeList

Click on the “Create a new TypeList” link.

Select the one that is best suited to your list type and give it a list name.

Click on “Create New List” and you will be taken to an “Add Item” page. TypeList customises your options for different types of TypeLists…

People

This gives you a list of fields customised for listing people like Name, Site Name, Site URL, Email Address and a Bio (note that Email Addresses will not be published for obvious reasons). You can just choose to enter the URLs and it will automatically fetch the site’s title – eg if you just wanted a list of people’s websites.

Links

Pretty explanatory, it’s for links! You can just enter the URL and it will fetch the website’s title to use, or you can enter these yourself and any notes you wish to add.

Books

TypePad has a great feature where you can just enter a keyword or your book’s identifying ISBN and it will give a list of book results from Amazon (with covers where available!) to choose one. We will show you later how you can get these links to use your Amazon affiliate ID if you have one. You can also enter Title/Author information yourself, add notes on the book (a short review?) and select stars for a rating.

Albums

Much like Books, you can enter keywords to get a list of results (and album artwork) from Amazon or you can enter your own album, artist and song information as well as album notes.

Notes

Each note in your list has a label and a note field. You don’t need to use the note field which is good if you just want a simple list of things. Use this for lists that don’t need links.

Adding More Items

For all list types, you can add more items by clicking on the “Add another item” button (if you’ve just added an item), or clicking on “Add Item” link:

or going back to your list of TypeLists, finding your chosen list and hitting the “Add an item” button.

Importing and Exporting Items

You can import and export OPML files using the Import/Export tab. OPML is a format for saving outlines (eg MindManager and OmniOutliner can export this format).

Manage a TypeList

You can manage your list items, either by finding your blog in your TypeLists tab and clicking on “More actions…” then select “Manage this TypeLists”.

Or you can click on “List Items” in the Manage tab in your TypeList.

You will then get a list of the items in your list. You can click on the item title to edit it or select its check box and hit “Delete” to delete it. You can also quickly add items if you want.

Configure your TypeList

You can access your TypeList’s configuration options from the “Configure” link on the main TypeList page.

Or when you’re already in your TypeList, from the “Configure” tab.

All TypeLists let you change their title and add a description.

Except for Notes, each of the different types of TypeList also have their own more advanced configuration options.

People

You can choose a from a drop down of different ways to order your list of people.

You can also choose the link title to be the name of the person or the name of the site.

You can choose whether to display your one-line bio (or keep that for your own information).

Links 

You can choose how many link items you show and how they are ordered.

You can also elect to display your notes as a tooltip (you’ll only see it when you mouse over the link), as text or you can choose not to display any notes.

Books

You can choose how many items you want to display and whether you want to order by date added, author, title or rating – all valid choices depending on your vision for your TypeList.

You can also choose to show or not show artwork, ratings and notes. This setting only affects display, you can still collect information in these fields.

Albums

Albums have practically the same options as Books, but the ordering options are slightly different for obvious reasons. You can order your albums by date added, artist, album title, song title or by rating.

Publish Your TypeList

You can access your TypeList publishing options via the “Publish” link for your list on the main TypeLists tab.

Or the “Publish” tab in your chosen TypeList.

Once there, you can select the blogs that you want that particular TypeList published to (it will show up in the blog’s sidebar column). You can also choose to publish the TypeList to your own “About Page” that goes across all your blogs.

You will also have access to links to change the content and order design options of each of the blogs (but not the About Page). We’ll go more into this when we show you how to change your blog’s design.

Once you hit “Save Changes”, your chosen blogs will find themselves with a new TypeList in their sidebars.

Next up, we’ll go through how make a TypePad Photo Album.

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This is part of our super series on How to Blog. Subscribe to our Newsletter for some special surprise How to Blog stuff over the course of the lessons.