I’m trying to pull my livejournal entries into a Microsoft word document. I use the livejournal backup utility to save them out in html format, but when I pull that into Word there is all sorts of weird formatting. Each entry is a separate table. All I want are the date, subject, and body of the entry, everything else is garbage. I cannot figure out how to eliminate the formatting in a way that is not tedious. (Like cut and paste or find and replace) Any ideas for me?
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Paste it into a plain text file first, eliminate formatting from that, then paste the whole thing back into word. Any coder can probably write up a one-off program in less than a half hour to do that plain text reformat for you if it’s a lot of work to do so manually.
Paste it into a plain text file first, eliminate formatting from that, then paste the whole thing back into word. Any coder can probably write up a one-off program in less than a half hour to do that plain text reformat for you if it’s a lot of work to do so manually.
To save as plain text
In case you don’t know how to save as plain text.
Copy and paste the html file into Word, this will look messy, don’t worry yet. In the menu at the top, go to File, Save As…, and find a drop down menu that says Format and gives various options. Pick Plain Text (.txt). After saving it in that format, quit Word, and then reopen the file in Word if you want to pretty-ify it back up again.
Another thing that might be possible, is I forget if Word has a “remove formatting” option. Try using Word’s Help files looking for “remove formatting”, or perhaps “apply Normal formatting” or “apply Normal template” instead. If this option exists, it’s simpler than the above directions.
To save as plain text
In case you don’t know how to save as plain text.
Copy and paste the html file into Word, this will look messy, don’t worry yet. In the menu at the top, go to File, Save As…, and find a drop down menu that says Format and gives various options. Pick Plain Text (.txt). After saving it in that format, quit Word, and then reopen the file in Word if you want to pretty-ify it back up again.
Another thing that might be possible, is I forget if Word has a “remove formatting” option. Try using Word’s Help files looking for “remove formatting”, or perhaps “apply Normal formatting” or “apply Normal template” instead. If this option exists, it’s simpler than the above directions.
Re: To save as plain text
Wohoo! You just saved me hours of work. Thanks!
Re: To save as plain text
Wohoo! You just saved me hours of work. Thanks!
Re: To save as plain text
Glad to help. 🙂
Re: To save as plain text
Glad to help. 🙂
There’s actually programs designed to save your LJ for you that are far better than what LJ has available. I like and use LJ Archive myself.
There’s actually programs designed to save your LJ for you that are far better than what LJ has available. I like and use LJ Archive myself.
Re: To save as plain text
Ah, good call. I guess I misunderstood the term “formatting”. Oops. 😛
Re: To save as plain text
Ah, good call. I guess I misunderstood the term “formatting”. Oops. 😛
Not that it helps much in transfering it into a Microsoft Word doc, but http://www.ljbook.com is a nice little site that takes your livejournel and spits the whole thing out as a .pdf book file.
Not that it helps much in transfering it into a Microsoft Word doc, but http://www.ljbook.com is a nice little site that takes your livejournel and spits the whole thing out as a .pdf book file.
Actually that helps tremendously. I was only trying to get my LJ into word so that I could turn it into a pdf. You just saved me several steps and hours of work. Now I can wait a couple of minutes and then take it straight to Lulu to make a hard copy for myself. A project I thought would take me months is essentially done. Thanks!
Actually that helps tremendously. I was only trying to get my LJ into word so that I could turn it into a pdf. You just saved me several steps and hours of work. Now I can wait a couple of minutes and then take it straight to Lulu to make a hard copy for myself. A project I thought would take me months is essentially done. Thanks!
Glad I could help. I am nothing more than a fount of useless knowledge.
I found that site not long after I started my LiveJournal account and kept the link around, it’s a great way to download it to a file or kick it off to Lulu to get an actual printing done.
Once again, glad I could help eliminate a few duty cycles from your hectic schedule.
Glad I could help. I am nothing more than a fount of useless knowledge.
I found that site not long after I started my LiveJournal account and kept the link around, it’s a great way to download it to a file or kick it off to Lulu to get an actual printing done.
Once again, glad I could help eliminate a few duty cycles from your hectic schedule.