Blog import and blog export with WordPress
This tutorial I will talk about blog import and blog export content using the import/export options in the WordPress administration area.
This import/export options allow you to import content into your WordPress blog or export your content from your WordPress blog.
There are quite a bit of additional functionality hidden in the import options page. Some of that functionality tends to get overlooked because there are many different features grouped together in one particular menu.
Keep in mind this export option I am going to talk about will not export your links and it is not going to export your links categories, tags, themes and is not going to export your blog settings. Those are the things you need to set up on the own. This is primary exporting your posts and pages, as well as your user account.
Let’s start with export
Go to your export page, inside your WordPress administration area click on Tools, and then click Export.
This allows you to export your content in your WordPress website, for example, you want to move your content from WordPress.com to your own domain. You will be able to export your content from WordPress.com into another WordPress blog or you have a group blog with many users/authors and you want to break out your own posts and start your own WordPress website.
You can do that easily by going to the export page; you have the option to select which authors you want to export content from.
In your WordPress Export page, click on the Download Export File button, you will get a XML file to save into your hard drive, which contain all of your WordPress posts and pages.
This is a great way to move your blog around if you don’t want to use your MySQL file, this is an alternative way to move your content.
In the past versions of WordPress, before 2.5, there was a problem with this wp export function. It would only export posts, not pages, but the new versions after 2.5 can export all of your pages as well as your posts. So, if you’re using WordPress as a content management system you will be able to use this to move your content around.
Once you export your blog, it’s time to talk about importing
Click on Import under the Tools drop-down to go to your import page.
The WP Export feature inside of WordPress is very powerful because if you’re working on another blogging system and thinking to move to WordPress, you don’t need to manually enter all of your data from your old blogging system. You can just export your content from your old blogging system. For exaple, if you are using Blogger, or LiveJournal or Movable Type, TypePad,GreyMatter, Textpattern, you will be able to export your posts to a similar file which WordPress can read.
Also, if for any reason you don’t want to use WordPress any longer, you can export your content and move to another platform, but I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. 
Inside your import page, you will see a list of other blogging systems including WordPress.
Select which blogging system you exported your file from and then upload your file
There are some other things inside the import page, there used to be many different tagging systems that were available for WordPress as plug-ins and now WordPress has a built in tagging system and you no longer need to use any tagging plugins.
If you’re using one of the other tagging plug-ins/systems like Simple Tagging, Ultimate Tag Warrior, now you have the ability to convert the tags from those systems into the native WordPress tagging system.
To do this you simply select which tagging system you were using, click on it and import the file. This is another use for the import function to import tags.
Converting your categories to tags or tags to categories
As well as converting your categories to tags or covert tags to categories. This does not convert other blogging system categories, the convert categories to tags option is to convert the content of the categories to tags on your own WordPress blog. This is something you need if you’ve been blogging for some time and gotten a lot of categories and you realize you have too many categories that need to be tags. This is a great way to convert your categories to tags.
You will need to be careful when converting your categories to tags because if you are using your categories on your permanent links you will probably break some of your URLs and you could create unexpected problems for yourself. Make sure you backup your database and files before using this import option.
That is all for the import page function in the WordPress administrator. Remember you can import from other blogging systems, import from other tagging systems, import from RSS feeds, and converting categories to tags.
More WordPress tutorials.
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