Confluence to Markdown converter which is actually working

Convert Confluence HTML export to Markdown

Requirements

You must have pandoc command line tool installed. Check it by running:

pandoc --version

Install all project dependencies:

npm install

or Docker

docker build -t ovos/converter .

docker run --rm -it -w /app -v $PWD:/app ovos/converter your-archived-space.zip 

Usage

In the converter's directory:

npm run start <pathResource> <pathResult>

Parameters

parameter	description
<pathResource>	File or directory to convert with extracted Confluence export
<pathResult>	Directory to where the output will be generated to. Defaults to current working directory

Process description

• Confluence page IDs in HTML file names and links are replaced with that pages' heading
• overall index.md is created linking all Confluence spaces - their indexes
• images and other inserted attachments are linked to generated markdown
  • whole images and attachments directories are copied to resulting directory
    • there is no checking done whether perticular file/image is used or not
• markdown links to internal pages are generated without the trailing .md extension to comply to gitit expectations
  • this can be changed by finding all occurances of gitit requires link to pages without .md extension in the .coffee files and adding the extension there.
  • or you can send a PR ;)
• the pandoc utility can accept quite a few options to alter its default behavior
  • those can be passed to it by adding them to @outputTypesAdd, @outputTypesRemove, @extraOptions properties in the App.coffee file
  • or you can send a PR ;)
  • here is the list of options pandoc can accept
• throughout the application a single console logger is used, its default verbosity is set to INFO
  • you can change the verbosity to one of DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR levels in the Logger.coffee file
  • or you can send a PR ;)
• a series of formatter rules is applied to the HTML text of Confluence page for it to be converted properly
  • you can view and/or change them in the Page.coffee file
  • the rules themselves are located in the Formatter.coffee file

Room for improvement

If you happen to find something not to your liking, you are welcome to send a PR. Some good starting points are mentioned in the Process description section above.

Export to HTML

Note that if the converter does not know how to handle a style, HTML to Markdown typically just leaves the HTML untouched (Markdown does allow for HTML tags).

Step by step guide for Confluence data export

1. Go to the space and choose Space tools > Content Tools on the sidebar.
2. Choose Export. This option will only be visible if you have the Export Space permission.
3. Select HTML then choose Next.
4. Decide whether you need to customize the export:

• Select Normal Export to produce an HTML file containing all the pages that you have permission to view.
• Select Custom Export if you want to export a subset of pages, or to exclude comments from the export.

5. Extract zip

WARNING
Please note that Blog will NOT be exported to HTML. You have to copy it manually or export it to XML or PDF. But those format cannot be processed by this utility.

Attribution

Thanks to Eric White for a starting point.