unforshadowed:

prettyarbitrary:

1: In which I explain why I want to be able to crosspost between Tumblr and LJ.

2: WordPress gets involved because LJ and Tumblr are both uncooperative.

3: Tumblr backup options. (Because backing up is sexy and also I want to be able to copy my blog and the first step for that is the same as backing up.)

4: Well, I can crosspost to Tumblr from WordPress.

hollydiggity replied to your post “Tumblr backup options”

i have over 21k posts, i don’t need all of those backed up (hit the limit trying to do it with wordpress) – is there anywhere to pick a certain kind of post (ie just text)?

Okay, in increasing order of complexity:

1: PCMag has an article with a number of options here: http://ift.tt/1yi6YUg

1a: Backup Jammy is awesome for making sure that you simply have a copy of everything if you ever need it.  But it doesn’t let you copy stuff over to a new blog.  It’s just a big fat HTML page that you can save somewhere.

1b: Tumblr Backup looks like it might be the best way to go–assuming you have a Mac (PC and Linux users, we’re out of luck).

1c: The IFTTT option lets you backup/copy NEW posts, but not ones that are already there.  It can serve as a pretty decent Tumblr>Wordpress crossposting option (god, I love IFTTT).  But it leaves you where you started when it comes to your existing posts.

2: Frostbox lets you backup your Tumblr account (including any and all blogs you have), and then download posts by type. 

Frostbox is a subscription service, BUT it does offer you a 7-day trial for free.  So I suppose an option would be to sign up for it, back up your blog to Frostbox, export it again, and then let the free trial expire.

3: If you have a hosted WordPress blog–that is, a blog you have installed on your own webspace, as opposed to an account on WordPress.com–then you can find all sorts of useful plugins, AND you simply don’t have the data limits to begin with.

Owning your own webspace tends to be expensive.  BUT there is another way to do this!

3a: If you have a friend with their own hosted WordPress blog, you could ask them to set up a blog for you.  Then you can use whatever plugins you need, import your Tumblr posts, sort them and delete ones you don’t want, etc.  And then, if simply staying on that blog is not feasible for whatever reason, you can then export a file of those posts once you have them the way you want them.  THAT, you can save on your computer, and then upload into a WordPress.com blog, and you’ll have it the way you want.

3b: The thing about WordPress is that you can actually install it on your own computer!  It won’t be a public online blog, but it will be perfectly functional.

Back when I first did this, the process was a little terrifying for me.  I knew enough about computers to figure I could probably manage it, but it required some frustration and a fair amount of Googling to get through it.  Fortunately, however, these days people have made it SUPER-easy with kits like Instant WordPress.

Information: http://ift.tt/1XULrvq

The software: http://ift.tt/184gc4a

I’ve just given this a spin, so I can tell you that installation really is pretty much point-and-shoot.  You can have it install anywhere; it doesn’t need to be in your programs folder.  You could put it on a USB thumb drive if you wanted.

Once you have the program installed, navigate to the place where you installed it and run it.  A dashboard will open.  Click on WordPress Admin and log in.  It will probably want you to update some things to the latest version, so go ahead.  And then you go to “Tools>Import” and select the one for Import to Tumblr.  It will install the plugin.  You’ll have to do a little dance to set up authorization to access your Tumblr, but it’s easier than it looks and I thought the instructions were quite clear.

Once that’s done, go back to “Tools>Import” and select the one for Tumblr again.  This time, you’ll be able to pick which blog you want to import.  So go ahead and do it! 

Note that it is slow so if you’ve got a really big Tumblr, then it may be at this all day.  When I imported by PrettyArbitrary Tumblr, I started in the evening and it ran overnight, and I have about 5000 posts.

Once the import is done, your posts will all be available under “Posts>All Posts.“  They should be dated the same as when you posted them. 

In recent versions, WordPress has added a Post Format element to posts, but the built-in dashboard options don’t really let you do much with it (although I found that, say, if I search ‘image’ then it will call up my image posts).

BUT that’s okay, because you can add a plugin to make this better too.  Go to “Plugins>Add New” and search ‘post format.‘  A bunch of plugins will come up which you can install.  Browse through and pick the ones that look useful to you.

And now that you’ve got your posts and things in place, you can sort through and do what you like!  Sort by tags, clean out entire sets of posts or post types that you don’t want (there’s a ‘Filter by Post Format’ plugin, and a ‘Switch Post Type’ plugin)…etc.

There are so many plugins for WordPress.  Pretty much anytime you want to do a thing but you can’t find a way to do the thing, just go search through plugins you can install and see if you can find one that does the thing for you.

Finally: once you have the posts you want to keep arranged in a way that suits you, go to “Tools>Export.“  Choose the option that represents the information you want to keep, and click Download Export File.

This will export a backup XML file that contains all the information you selected from this WordPress installation.  You can take that file over to WordPress.com, go to “Import>Wordpress” and upload it all there onto an online blog.

You might find you want to keep that offline WordPress installation though.  When I first started mucking with it, I learned an awful lot about blog admin, editing and designing themes, and how online systems works.  Plus it turned out to be a surprising amount of fun to tinker with.

For future reference woah.

This is going around again, so I may as well reblog it here for anybody who finds it interesting.

from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1XULrvr

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