From Digital Archive to Printed Keepsake
Have you poured years of work and creativity into your personal or business blog, but now find it’s run its course? Maybe you’re taking a new direction or simply don’t have the time to keep your blog active anymore. Whatever the reason, those posts deserve a better fate than disappearing into the digital ether. This is a familiar scenario for many bloggers and one that a client approached us with recently.
We at Digital Creative Lab understand the need to hold onto your content, even if the blog itself is no longer active. Lets explore ways to save your WordPress blog posts in a format that’s both editable and preservable, allowing you to revisit, repurpose, or simply hold onto your memories.
Exploring the Built-in WordPress Export Feature
WordPress is a fantastic tool for bloggers of all levels, offering an easy-to-use export feature. This built-in export tool allows exporting of posts, pages, and custom post types in an XML format. Here’s a quick look at the benefits and limitations:
Pros:
- Built-in and free; no extra plugins needed.
- Export posts, pages, comments, custom fields, navigation menus, etc into a structured XML file format, preserving the formatting and metadata.
- Ideal for transferring content to another WordPress site.
- Exports all content types.
Cons:
- Limited to XML format, which is not the most user-friendly for editing.
- It’s not user-friendly for general reading either.
- May not include media files or custom post types depending on your site setup.
- No option for exporting to other formats like PDF, Word Document, Text File, etc
Full Website Backup for Peace of Mind
Consider a full backup for a comprehensive save of your website. Tools like WPVividBackup will export your website files, media library, plugins, themes and database for restoring at another point in time.
Exploring Third-Party Solutions
In our research to find the most suitable solution for our client, we explored a couple of third-party plugins.
Print My Blog: This plugin showed promise initially but encountered issues and errors during testing.
MPL Publisher: Next, we came across the MPL Publisher, a WordPress plugin offering a straightforward solution to exporting blog posts. The free version allowed us to export up to 50 posts to see if it was a viable solution.
What we liked best:
- The plugin’s ability to generate editable Word documents containing all blog posts and images.
- It came with several template options
- Ability to rearrange the order of the posts.
Initially there was no option to export the posts with the post date. After reaching out to the developer, he included the feature within a few days which is exception turnaround time.
MPL Publisher: A Reliable Solution:
After liaising with the developer and spending time configuring and testing the free version, we found MPL Publisher to be a reliable option for archiving WordPress blog posts. The responsiveness of the developer and the seamless export process convinced us of its effectiveness.
Features of MPL Publisher:
- Export all blog posts into a user-friendly editable Word document format.
- The latest version includes post dates.
- Generates PDF, EPUB (versions 2 and 3), and plain text versions for maximum compatibility.
- Intuitive interface and straightforward configuration.
Below is a quick walkthrough video of the MPL Publisher plugin.
Cost and Value:
While the paid version of MPL Publisher comes at a cost of $49, we believe it’s a worthwhile investment for bloggers looking to preserve their content efficiently. The convenience and versatility offered by this plugin outweigh its modest price tag.
Wrapping Up
Your blog is more than just a website; it’s a chronicle of your life’s work. Whether you’re looking to hold onto cherished memories, repurpose content for future projects, or simply create a physical archive, there’s a solution that fits your needs. At Digital Creative Lab, we’re here to help you safeguard those memories for years to come. Contact us today if you would like a similar solution to export your blog posts to an editable and printable format.
