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Learn how to make the most of your Typepad blog. Filled with tips, tricks, and general information, Typepad's Knowledge Base will help you build a better blog.

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Import Format Information

If you'd like to import posts from another blogging software into Typepad, they need to be in a specific format so that Typepad can read them correctly.

If you are importing content from another Typepad blog or Movable Type, you can follow the import instructions here. For Blogger, Blogspot, or Blogger Pro, you can follow the instructions in the article here. If you're importing from WordPress, click here.

Note: Typepad is unable to import posts from different authors. If a post was created by a different author, it will be associated with the weblog's owner instead. This would require that Typepad create the authors during the import process and this feature is currently unavailable.

The basic import format is a list of posts, separated by the string --------\n (that is eight - characters, followed by a carriage return). Each post can be broken into two main sections; these sections are separated by the string -----\n (that is five - characters, followed by a carriage return).

If you have HTML in the data that you are importing, it should not be encoded into HTML entities; the data that is in your import file is imported verbatim into the Typepad database. So, your data should look exactly as it would were you to click the HTML tab when creating a new post:

  • Metadata
  • Multi-line fields (Body, Extended Body, Excerpt, Comments)

Metadata

Each piece of metadata is formatted as KEY: VALUE, and one piece of metadata is separated from the next by a carriage return. The order of the metadata pieces is not important.

For example:

AUTHOR: Foo Bar
TITLE: A dummy title
DATE: 01/31/2002 03:31:05 PM
CATEGORY: News

TITLE

The title of the post.

If you do not specify a title, a title will be generated automatically from the first five (5) words in the post body.

This is optional.

DATE

The authored-on date of the post.

This should be in the format MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss AM|PM. AM|PM is optional, and if not present the hh will be interpreted as being in military time.

This is required.

CATEGORY

The category to which the post is assigned.

If the category name does not exist, a new category record will be created, and the post will be assigned to the new category. If the category name does exist, the post will be assigned to the existing category.

STATUS

The post status of the post. Valid values are either draft, future, or publish.

ALLOW COMMENTS

The value for the "allow comments" flag for the post. Valid values are either 0 or 1.

ALLOW PINGS

The value for the "allow pings" flag for the post. Valid values are either 0 or 1.

CONVERT BREAKS

The value for the "convert breaks" flag for the post. Valid values are either 0 or 1.

Multi-line fields

Multi-line fields are separated by -----\n (that is five - characters, followed by a carriage return). Each multi-line field is started by the key denoting the type of field, followed by a carriage return, followed by the actual body of the field.

For example:

BODY:
This is the body.
-----
EXTENDED BODY:
Here is some more text.
-----
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Foo
DATE: 01/31/2002 15:47:06
This is
the body of this comment.
-----
PING:
TITLE: Foo Bar
URL: http://www.foo.com/baz/archives/000015.html
DATE: 08/05/2002 04:05:23 PM
This is
the excerpt of the ping.
-----

BODY

The body of the post.

EXTENDED BODY

The extended body of the post.

EXCERPT

The excerpt of the post.

COMMENT

Represents one comment on this post. Multiple COMMENT sections can appear, each separated by the standard multi-line field separator (-----\n).

 <p>In a COMMENT section, the following fields are applicable:</p>
      <ul><li><p><b>AUTHOR</b></p>
        <p>The name of the author of the comment.</p></li>

      <li><p><b>EMAIL</b></p>
        <p>The email address of the author of the comment.</p></li>

      <li><p><b>URL</b></p>
        <p>The URL of the author of the comment.</p></li>

      <li><p><b>IP</b></p>
        <p>The IP Address of the author of the comment.</p></li>

      <li><p><b>DATE</b></p>
        <p>The date on which the comment was posted. This should be in the same format as the DATA metadata key, above.</p></li></ul>

  <p>Any line that does not match one of the above keys starts the body of the comment; the body of the comment then consists of everything from that point to the end of the COMMENT section. If this is unclear, look below at the EXAMPLE.</p>

PING

  <p>Represents one TrackBack ping on this post. Multiple PING sections can appear, each separated by the standard multi-line field separator (-----\n).</p>

  <p>In a PING section, the following fields are applicable:</p>
      <ul><li><p><b>TITLE</b></p>
        <p>The title of this ping.</p></li>

      <li><p><b>URL</b></p>
        <p>The URL to the original post.</p></li>

      <li><p><b>IP</b></p>
        <p>The IP address of the server that sent the ping.</p></li>

      <li><p><b>BLOG NAME</b></p>
        <p>The name of the weblog from which the ping was sent.</p></li>

      <li><p><b>DATE</b></p>
        <p>The date on which the ping was sent. This should be in the same format as the DATA metadata key, above.</p></li></ul>

  <p>Any line that does not match one of the above keys starts the ping excerpt; the excerpt then consists of everything from that point to the end of the PING section. If this is unclear, look below at the EXAMPLE.</p>

EXAMPLE

This is an example of a complete import that you can base your own on.

TITLE: A dummy title
AUTHOR: Foo Bar
DATE: 01/31/2002 03:31:05 PM
CATEGORY: News
-----
BODY:
This is the body.
-----
EXTENDED BODY:
Here is some more text.
-----
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Foo
DATE: 01/31/2002 15:47:06
This is
the body of this comment.
-----
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Bar
DATE: 02/01/2002 04:02:07 AM
IP: 205.66.1.32
EMAIL: [email protected]
This is the body of
another comment. It goes
up to here.
-----
PING:
TITLE: My Post
URL: http://www.foo.com/old/2002/08/
IP: 206.22.1.53
BLOG NAME: My Weblog
DATE: 08/05/2002 16:09:12
This is the start of my
post, and here it...
-----
--------
TITLE: Here is a new post
AUTHOR: Baz Quux
DATE: 01/31/2002 03:31:05
CATEGORY: Politics
-----
BODY:
This is the body of the second post. It can
consist of multiple lines.
-----
EXCERPT:
See, this post does not have an extended piece; but
it does have an excerpt. It is special.
-----
COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Quux
URL: http://www.quux.com/
DATE: 01/31/2002 04:23:01 PM
Here is the first comment on this post.
-----
--------


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