July 30, 2013

• Instructions for Exporting Your Xanga Blog to WordPress.com

  Update - July 31, 2013

  Please see The Xanga Team's latest post here:  Xanga 2.0 is almost here! The fundraising goal is now $ 50,000, though at the current time we're still over $ 1,000 short of that, but it seems Xanga 2.0 may become a reality...

  * * *

  I've had tons of people come (and they are still coming) to look at a pulse (http://naphtali-deer.xanga.com/pulse/14432307/item.html) I posted asking about exporting blogs to WordPress just after @TheXangaTeam announced the change to a paid platform and the possibility Xanga would shut down if $ 60,000 wasn't raised by July 15 (now July 31).

  "Anybody know how to export our Xanga blogs to WordPress (or another blogging platform)?"

  At the end of that pulse, I did add in a few comments about how to export Xanga blogs to WordPress, and I also gave a quick summary of that in my post "Keep Calm and Download Archives," but I'd like to flesh that out a little more now.

  I know there are other people who have already put up blogs about this, but I want to be a help to those who are needing help. I tell you this, I'm NO computer guru (I always say I have just enough computer knowledge to be dangerous ), but I DID manage to get two of my blogs exported over to wordpress.com (deerlifexanga deerlifetrumpet and zechariah821). I'm still working on editing the formating, photos, and links in the latter, but it is definitely doable!

  First off, you won't be able to export ANYTHING AT ALL to WordPress if you have never ARCHIVED YOUR BLOG.

  And even if you HAVE archived your blog, you won't be able to export anything to WordPress if you haven't DOWNLOADED A COPY of the WordPress archive to your computer.

  How to do that...

   

  Archiving and Downloading Your Xanga Blog to Your Computer

  Sign in to Xanga and go to your SETTINGS on your Private settings page here:

  http://www.xanga.com/Private/SettingsMain.aspx

  On the left hand side of that page, click on WEBLOG ARCHIVES, which will bring you to this page:

  http://www.xanga.com/private/archives.aspx

  If you have NEVER created your archives, click the button at the bottom... I think it will say CREATE YOUR ARCHIVE. Then you will have to WAIT until Xanga generates archives for you. You'll need to check back to this page to see if your archives have been created.

  If you have ALREADY created your archives, to get the file you need to export to WordPress, click on wordpress.wxr.zip.

  You will also want to click on archive.zip. That's an HTML copy of your blog archive, but that file will do you no good for porting to WordPress, but it's good to have for your own reference.

  If you want to save your photos, videos, audio, and pulses, click on those links as well:

  photos.zip
  videos.zip
  audio.zip
  pulses.zip

  If your archives are NOT up to date (you can see the date created), update them ASAP by clicking the button at the bottom of the page:  UPDATE YOUR ARCHIVES. In the meantime, I'd recommend your downloading the latest archive files to your computer to be on the safe side. (I know there are many of you have tried getting copies of your archives to no avail. I hope you can get help from @TheXangaTeam to get this resolved)

  As you click these links, the archive files should go to that location you have set for your files that you download to go on your computer.

   

  Now ... Importing to WordPress.com

  Find the WordPress.wxr.zip file on your computer. Click on that file to get it to xml format. When you click on it you'll get a file with this name:

  wordpress.xml

  (This is all pretty much Greek to me, so don't ask me to explain this, except the xml is a means to communicate all your blog information to WordPress. The html archives do not work the same way; that's why I was thrilled the Xanga Team provided archives in the WordPress format (otherwise the average person like me would need to get software to do that conversion or else have to pay someone to do that).)

  Now you can't import anything at all to wordpress.com unless you have a WordPress.com blog set up. See the instructions here:

  http://en.support.wordpress.com/get-started/

  After you've done that, go to your page here:

  http://YOURBLOGNAME.wordpress.com/wp-admin/

  On the left side of that page, near the bottom, you'll see the menu item TOOLS (picture of a wrench next to it). Click on TOOLS.

  Then click on IMPORT.

  Then click on WordPress.

  You should get to this page: http://YOURBLOGNAME.wordpress.com/wp-admin/admin.php?import=wordpress

  with these instructions:

   

  Import WordPress

  Howdy! Upload your WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) file and we’ll import the posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags into this site.

  Choose a WXR (.xml) file to upload, then click Upload file and import.

  Choose a file from your computer: (Maximum size: 15 MB)

   

  Below that is a button: CHOOSE FILE.

  At that point, select the wordpress.xml file you created above. WordPress will send you an e-mail notice when your import is complete.

   

  You can find more detailed information about importing here:

  http://en.support.wordpress.com/import/

   

  A few miscellaneous notes:

  About PULSES:  When you export your blog to WordPress, the pulses will appear as private posts.

  About PHOTOS:  When you export your blog to WordPress, your photos which you used in your blog WILL be imported to WordPress (you can find them in your Media Library (http://naphtalideer.wordpress.com/wp-admin/upload.php) -- BUT those images are NOT LINKED in to your new blog. To explain, the images in your blog are currently linked on Xanga's servers, so if/when Xanga goes down, there will be no image appearing. You will need to go through and manually attach all your images in your Media Library to each place that image is used in your blog. WordPress support had been looking for a way to make this happen without manually doing so, but I've not heard that they've come up with a solution. If you have photos that were in your photo manager, but you never used them in your blog posts, they are not going to be in your Media Library, so be sure to download the photos archive above, so you'll have everything on your computer in case Xanga shuts down. You can import those photos to WordPress as well.

  About TAGS: All your tags will be imported along with your blogs.

  About COMMENTS: All comments will be imported as well.

  About PRIVATE POSTS: Private posts remain private.

   

  A final note:

  I have committed $ 96 ($ 48 / 2 blogs) to continue blogging here at Xanga, but it's looking less and less like that's going to happen, unless someone ponies up a huge amount of money between now and the end of the day tomorrow... huge as in over $ 13,000 (see here).

  I hope this is some help to you. If you have questions, feel free to ask. As I said, though I'm no expert, I may be able to help you. I'd also recommend your going to the WordPress sites I referenced above, as well as the general WordPress support site: http://en.support.wordpress.com/ and forums: http://en.forums.wordpress.com/. I've found all of these to be of immense help.

  ~ Karen

   

  • 12:28 PM
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