Export Content to Word, PDF, HTML and XML

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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 Word or PDF

If you need to send content to people who don't have access to Confluence, you can export a single page as a Word document or a PDF. You can also export a single blog post to 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 either Tools > Export to Word or Tools > Export to PDF.

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Related pages:

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 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.

The HTML export is useful if you want convert your space into a static website, or you can use the XML export option if you need to import the space into another Confluence site, or use the data from the space in another application. You might use the PDF option if you're producing a user manual from your technical documentation in Confluence.

To export pages to HTML, XML, or PDF:

  1. Go to the space and choose Space tools > Content Tools from the bottom of the sidebar
  2. Choose Export
  3. Select either HTML, XML, or PDF, then choose Next
  4. Select either a normal or custom export for HTML or PDF, or a Full or Custom XML export:
    • Normal Export (HTML and PDF) – to produce an HTML file containing all the pages that you have permission to view.
    • Full Export (XML) – to produce an XML file containing all the pages in the space, including those that you do not have permission to view.
    • Custom Export – if you want to export selected pages only, or if you want to exclude comments from the export.
  5. Choose Export

(info) Blog posts aren't included when exporting to PDF using this method, and comments are never included when exporting to PDF. 

When the export process has finished, you can download the zipped archive or PDF.If your space uses the Documentation theme, choose Browse > Space Operations, then choose either HTML, XML, or PDF Export from the left menu, and follow the steps above to export the Space. 

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.

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.
  • Blog posts aren't included in the HTML export. See the feature request:  CONF-14684 - Getting issue details... STATUS
  • 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

  • See Restoring a Space for notes on restrictions when importing a space. Most importantly, you can't import a space into an earlier Confluence version.
  • 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
Last modified on Jul 18, 2016

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