Intro
This post is the first of a three part series (part 2) of tutorials in which we'll explore the basics of exporting content from Atlassian's Confluence. This series will cover three different methods for exporting content from Confluence to a HTML format. In the first tutorial, we will cover how to use Confluence's native solution for exporting content to HTML and the pros and cons of this method. In later tutorials, we will cover how to use Scroll's EclipseHelp and HTML Export plugins to accomplish the same result but without the pitfalls that the native solution brings to the table.Confluence has the capability of exporting the contents of a space to many formats such as PDF, Word, XML, and HTML. In this series, we will only focus on exporting to the HTML format. The reason why we will be focusing on the HTML format is that is a flexiable format that allows technical writers to apply post operations to the content prior to posting the content to it's final presentation form.
By the end of this tutorial, you should have a zip file with all the content you wish to export from Confluence in the HTML format.
- Navigate to the top most page in the space you wish to export from Confluence.
- Go to Space Tools > Content Tools. The location of this link will vary depending on the theme you are using.
- Click on the Export tab.
- If you wish to export in HTML, select HTML from the Export Formats option and click Next. You can also choose from XML and PDF but those options will not be covered in this post.
- If you wish to export everything in your target space, select Normal Export. However, if you wish to export a particular set of pages, select Custom Export.
- By selecting Custom Export, you will be presented with every page in the space that can be exported (by default).
- Click the Deselect All option and check off with pages you wish to export. If you select a page that has children pages, those pages will automatically be selected as well.
- If you wish to include comments with your select pages, leave the Include comments option enabled.
- With the pages selected, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Export. Confluence will churn for a moment and present you with a download link. Click the download link to receive your zipped file of HTML content.
This method is kind enough to generate an index.html file that lists, and links, the content you just generated along with space details at the top of the page, and document generation date in the footer of the page. This zip file will also include any and all images, and style sheets used in the pages you selected. If you were hoping that it would include any JavaScript code from features found on your Confluence pages, I'm afraid you're out of luck. While some JavaScript files may be exported, I didn't see any evidence of scripts that recreate the behaviors found in the macros typically used within Confluence.
Drawbacks
There are two drawbacks to this export method: 1: It isn't automatable. 2: No options to save export settings. I'm all about automating any documentation task. But, as far as I know, this method cannot be automated (please correct me if I'm wrong). Unlike the other export methods available to Confluence (see Scroll's plugin solution), this method doesn't offer any options to save the export settings or which pages to export.Notes
If you applied any properties to the images found on your pages that you selected, they may not appear the same as before. At the time of writing this post, properties like floats and borders did not translate. The CSS rules and classes are in the code that is included in the export but the effects of the CSS didn't work out of the box.This tutorial was tested on Confluence 5.6.4. Mileage may very on other versions.
