Export Content to Word, PDF, HTML and XML
You can export all or part of a Confluence space to various formats, including Microsoft Word, HTML, PDF and XML.
To use the space export functionality, you need the 'Export Space' permission. See the guide to space permissions.
Export single pages to PDF
If you need to send content to people who don't have access to Confluence, you can export a single page or blog post as a PDF.
If you've got permission to view the page in Confluence, you'll be able to export it in this way; go to the page and choose 
(Tools) > Export to PDF.
Only published content is exported. This means you can create PDF exports even while people are still working on the page.
When you export a single page to PDF, the PDF stylesheet customizations are applied, but any PDF layout customizations are not. To make your PDF layout customizations apply to a single page exported to PDF, you'll need to use the 'multiple page' method described below to export the single page. See Customize Exports to PDF.
Export single pages to Word
You can also choose to export single pages to a .doc file that can be opened in Microsoft Word.
If you've got permission to view the page in Confluence, you'll be able to export it in this way; go to the page and choose Tools > Export to Word.
Only published content is exported. This means you can create Word exports even while people are still working on the page. Also, only the first 50 attached images will be included in the export. See the notes below for more information.
Note that due to the format of this file, it can only be opened in Microsoft Word and is not compatible with other applications such as Open Office, Libre Office or Google Docs.
Export multiple pages to HTML, XML, or PDF
If you want to export a space – or selected pages in a space – to HTML, XML, or PDF, Confluence can create a zipped archive of the HTML or XML files, or a single, downloadable PDF file.
PDF export is useful you're producing a printable user manual from your documentation space for example. The HTML export can be used to convert your site content to a static website, and finally the XML export can be used to import your space content into another Confluence space (running the same or later version of Confluence).
To export pages to HTML, XML, or PDF:
- Go to the space and select Space tools > Content Tools from the bottom of the sidebar
- Select Export
- Select one of the following formats:
- HTML – export an HTML file containing only the pages you have permission to view. With this format, you have two options:
- Normal Export – generate an HTML file for each page in the space, except for blogs, comments, and attachments.
- Custom Export – generate an HTML file of only the pages you've selected.
- XML – export a full XML file containing all the pages in the space, including those you don't have permission to view. This export includes comments and attachments but excludes blog posts.
- PDF – export a PDF file containing only the pages you have permission to view. With this format, you have two options:
- Normal export – generate a PDF file for each page in the space, except for blogs, comments, and non-image attachments.
- Custom export – generate a PDF file of selected pages excluding any comments.
- HTML – export an HTML file containing only the pages you have permission to view. With this format, you have two options:
For normal export and custom export, you can also choose to Include Pages Numbers at the bottom of every page in your PDF.
4. Review your selection, and select Export.
You can download the zipped archive or PDF when the export process has finished.
What's included in the export?
The following content is included in space exports.
| PDF export | XML export | HTML export | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Blogs | No | Yes | No |
| Comments | No | Optional | Optional |
| Attachments | Images only | Yes | Yes |
| Unpublished changes | No | Yes | No |
| Page numbers | Optional | N/A | N/A |
| Restricted pages and blog posts | Only those you can view | Yes, they remain restricted | Only those you can view |
Customizing the appearance of PDF exports
You can add a title page, table of contents, and customized headers and footers to the PDF output. For more advanced customizations, you can apply Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) modifications. These customizations are specific to each space, and you need the 'Space Administrator' permission to apply these customizations. For more information, see Customize Exports to PDF.
Notes on PDF exporting
- To export a PDF containing international text, see Create a PDF in Another Language
- Confluence's PDF export feature is designed to handle a wide variety of content, but on rare occasions the PDF Export process may fail due to an unrecognized customization. If that happens, the PDF export screen will indicate the title of the page in which the problem occurred, to help you diagnose the cause of the failure.
Tables that exceed the width of a page, particularly those with images in them, might be cut off in the PDF. See Wide tables are cut off in PDF exports for some suggested workarounds.
In Confluence Data Center, PDF exports are handled by the external process pool.
Notes on Word exporting
- Only the first 50 images attached to the page are exported to your Word document. This is to prevent out of memory errors affecting your whole Confluence site. See CONFSERVER-34211 - Getting issue details... STATUS for more information, and to find out how you can temporarily increase this limit using a system property.
Notes on HTML exporting
- In the zip file, page attachments are placed in individual folders with names in the following format:
...\download\attachments\xxxxxx
where 'xxxxxx'is the page ID of the page containing the attachments.
To customize the HTML output, you'll need to modify the file
confluence-x.y.z-jar/com/atlassian/confluence/pages/Page.htmlexport.vm. To learn how to repackage this file, see How to Edit Files in Confluence JAR Files
Notes on XML exporting
- You can only import a space into the same or later Confluence version. You can't import a space into an earlier version.
- Team Calendars aren't included in XML exports.
- If you're doing the export for backup purposes, consider another means of backup. See Production Backup Strategy.
- If you are running Confluence behind Apache HTTP Server and are facing timeout errors, please consider creating the export directly from Tomcat, instead of going through Apache. This will speed up the process and prevent timeouts.
- See Restoring a Space for notes on restrictions when importing a space into Confluence Server.
Migrating content to Confluence Cloud
If you're migrating from Confluence Server to Confluence Cloud, you can use the Confluence Cloud Migration Assistant to migrate your content and spaces.