create blog offline

Here is an article that discusses how to set up a local (i.e. on your computer) version of WordPress.

Simpler than that is a test WP installation which under “privacy” you choose to not be indexed by search engines, but filosofo answered your “offline” question.

Keep in mind that the blog visibility under Settings > Privacy does not hide your blog–people would still be able to “see the mess.” All it does is instruct search engines not to index the pages, as Gangleri said.

Naturally; but when ‘nobody knows’ about the test site, how would anybody see the mess (and would it really matter if they do)?

Well maybe I’ll try to make a local WP installation some day too, but at the moment I’ll just work with my test site.

If you have control over the server where you are hosting the WP installation, you put password-protection on the site. Then no one can access it, whether or not the search engine setting is “private” — you need to log in to even see it. (Not a WP feature, but a feature of your hosting service/server).

That’s a good option, never thought about that actually!