Is it possible to export a Confluence Space to word with all sub pages & content of filelist intact
Asked by Lotte Munck:

Hi Community!

I want to export a Confluence Space to word with all sub pages and content of filelist intact.

I'm aware of the functionality in Space settings under Manage Spaces-\> Export Files, however this only offers the HTLML, XML or PDF format. And this don't fulfill the need of my customer.


Answers:
author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: To answer the headline question, yes, the the export you mention in the second part are exports of a confluence space.

But, if none of them are suitable for your need, then the answer is no, Confluence does not have an export that suits you.

There might be an app that can do it, but we can't make any suggestions without knowing what "the need of your customer" is. What are they looking for that space export does not do?

comments: author: Lotte Munck
body: Thx Nic for your reply:-) My customer needs an editable format like word. They also want a format that is easy to read. I'm aware that this is a bit old fasioned but it's a part of our contract to deliver in this type of format and I'm not quite happy to export to PDF first and then put the export file though PDF writer


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Word isn't suitable as a space export - it loses all sense of the structure of the space and would give you a monolithic, disordered and totally unwieldy document. Spaces often stretch to thousands of pages - can you imagine trying to read a book where every paragraph is in a random order?

Pages do have a word export function, you could use that to provide the pages your customers actually need to read

Why do your customers think they need a space export? What is wrong with reading Confluence in place? Or as the static objects that a pdf would give you?

Remember that an export provides a snapshot of the docs, which quickly become obsolete, and you wouldn't be using the export to edit the docs, so there's not a lot of point in having the export come out in an editable format.


author: Lotte Munck
body: Hi Nic. I'm aware of all this:-) And I agree with you all the way. However this is a specific exit paragraf in contract that we need to fulfill one way or the other. And I'm seaching for the easiest way around this issue and still make my customer happy:-)


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: It's my consultant instinct - "why do you think you want something that is of no real use to you?".

When my lot promise documentation to clients, we give them a space export if they want something they can maintain themselves, or pdfs if they want static docs.

Another option might be to scrape your space with a script - get the content of each page over the REST api and dump it out as (minimally formatted) text.


author: Lotte Munck
body: Well, It doesn't quite work that way in the Danish public sector:-) The exit clause is when Customer leaves the contract and want a new vendor to take over. So EVERYTHING - including the Confluence Space - will be shout down. It's a normal clause in a contract when you deal with Danish Governance. Every x year every public contract will be put into a bid - just for the competition and to get the best offer possible for the right price:-)

But basically and back to my original problem... If I understood you correctly - we don't have a add-on or plug-in for export a Space into word format. If we want it in word, the only way is to export the single pages - one at the time, Right?

The other option you suggest might work if new vendor want to establish all our documentation from Confluence into a tool of their choise. I'm no expert in REST api (I'm scrum master), so I have to talk to some from my team.


Tags: cloud

confluence-cloud