How to Successfully Write a Medium Article on Your Phone

It’s a lot of hassle, but it’s possible

Thanks to Paul Hanaoka @plhnk for making this photo available freely on Unsplash 🎁 https://unsplash.com/photos/HbyYFFokvm0

I have just written an article on my phone. Usually, I have to borrow a laptop to edit. Unfortunately, my laptop has broken and I can’t currently afford a new one, which is why I subject myself to mostly writing articles via my phone. I use a 2-year-old android mid-range smartphone and it’s been difficult to figure out, but I think I’ve finally successfully written full-length articles on medium, using my phone.

𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗹𝗲

You should write your article using software that checks for grammatical errors. Editors will check your work using software such as Grammarly. Grammarly has an App, but there is no space for it on my phone. If you use your mobile browser, Grammarly will ask you to sign up for a paid account. I get around this by switching to the desktop browser. You click the three dots in the top corner (at least if you're using an android, like me) and check the box that states “desktop site”.

If I need to stick to a word count, then I use an online word counter during my edits, and then check what medium counts the words as under drafts before hitting publish.

𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗹𝗲

I have found the Medium app useless for writing on. The easiest thing to do is to change your setting on your browser to desktop settings. I copy and paste my articles from Grammarly to the Medium website through the desktop version of Chrome. There’s a “write” button under your profile, and there’s one under “stories”.

𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗹𝗲

Writing a title on your mobile can be difficult. Sometimes, I have to write many letters until it picks the title up in bold “hahahh ajsjsnsksk” or something. As soon as you get the site to bold your writing, you can edit a title. If you don’t do this step first, you will need a laptop to write the title. Clicking the "space" button on your smartphone keyboard can help.

𝗔𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝘀

So you’ve written a title, written your article on Grammarly, and pasted it into medium, the next thing you need is pictures! Unsplash is a great place to find pictures. When you’ve found your picture, you can download it. The share link that is automatically generated is useless for your mobile. Therefore, you need to press the share button, which for me is an arrow. If you then click copy, you will paste text that includes a link and an image credit/ caption space (under the photo, like in the photo in this article). It is important to credit the photographer for any photos that you use to avoid breaching copyright. You need to use photos that you have permission to use (such as those on Unsplash) for the same reasons.

You can put photos into your article by making a double space, clicking the plus button, and uploading a photo from your gallery. To credit the artist paste the credit in the space under the photo.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀…

For some time I have struggled to write an article that wasn’t just short-form because of this step. I just couldn’t write subtitles. If you Google bold writing, you can find many generators that will allow you to change any text to bold. The one I’ve used most recently is Yay Text. This one does not convert question marks or exclamation marks to bold. You paste the text into the generator, copy and past it into your article, and now you have bolded subtitles. For your main subtitle, write it, then press backspace until it becomes a part of your title, then press enter and it should bold.

Links can be pasted and as long as they are pasted in whole and you’ve not broken the link, then they should show up after you click publish.

Adding keywords can either be done by selecting publish, clicking the “…” button and then “submit to a publication” or by using the same drop-down menu and clicking “change tags”. The drop-down menu may take several attempts.

𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 — Publishing on your android smartphone can be difficult but it is possible. If you have the option, then it’s much less hassle to just use a laptop. Short-form may well be an easier way to publish via your phone. I’ve written, edited, and published this entire article on my android phone. Can you tell?