Import question, re: multiple .xml files
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I haven’t done an export/import in several years and the process has changed since I last did a successful import of another WordPress.com website.
The Import support page says:
An export from WordPress is saved in an .xml file…
Click Start Import next to the WordPress importer. Drag your .xml file into the box, or click the box to browse to the file on your computer.
However, the export of my website was saved not as a single .xml file but as a .zip file containing a dozen .xml files, just as the Export support page indicates that it will, when one chooses to export all content, saying:
The content will be delivered as a series of .xml files, that will contain your posts, pages, comments, categories, tags, and references to your site’s images.
Is this not contradictory information in the Export and Import support pages? I’m left wondering whether I can import all of the content at once by selecting the .zip file or whether I must import each of the 12 .xml files separately.
The Import from Medium support page does indicate that the entire .zip file from an export may be imported with one action, but I don’t equivalent instruction in the general Import support page, which doesn’t mention .zip files at all and provides no clue as to what to do when there are multiple .xml files rather than one.
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Hi, so … you can actually drag a .zip file there if it is an actual WordPress export created here. Things get confusing though if folks think they could upload an entire zipped site with images and all.
If you have suggestions on how best to address that, let us know your thoughts. But, we also only zip if you have quite a few posts/pages/media entries so it’s likely an edge case.
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Hi, supernovia,
you can actually drag a .zip file there if it is an actual WordPress export created here
Yes, I created the export at WP Admin > Tools > Export.
Things get confusing though if folks think they could upload an entire zipped site with images and all.
Well, I do want the images to be imported as well. Years ago I was able to import an entire WordPress.com site to another WordPress.com site, with all images included. Can images not be included now in an import?
I see that the Export support page says:
The content will be delivered as a series of .xml files, that will contain your posts, pages, comments, categories, tags, and references to your site’s images.
What is meant by “references to your site’s images”?
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It’s not that I necessarily need the entire site duplicated on another site. I’m considering dividing my present site into three parts of approximately equal size. I surmised that perhaps the best way to accomplish this would be to import the whole of site 1 to both sites 2 and 3, and then delete what wasn’t wanted from each site.
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The division of the single present site into the projected trio of sites will be according three historical periods. On which of the three sites a page belongs will depend upon the historical period that its content reflects. The published date of pages and posts in the present site is irrelevant.
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The division into three sites might be avoid if there is a way to have three separate sections on a single site, each with it’s own front page, header images, background, and sidebar content.
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Hi @musicdoc1, I’m not sure how this fell off the radar.
The zip files we make do not include image files. The “references” are links in the XML files, which the importer uses to get the images from their old location.
The zip files some other companies make (such as a hosting backup through cPanel) would not be compatible, as they tend to include actual image files, php, etc.
Re: importing everything and deleting some of it, that makes sense, although you’ll want to consider the implications of deleting links that have been indexed by search engines or linked over social media. Speaking from personal experience there.
Are you having trouble importing right now or is this more of a request to rewrite documentation?
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Hi @supernovia, No worries.
you’ll want to consider the implications of deleting links that have been indexed by search engines or linked over social media.
I agree that such implications are worthy of consideration.
Are you having trouble importing right now or is this more of a request to rewrite documentation?
I haven’t tried importing recently. My proposed project is still in the early planning stage. Essentially, I’m focusing in this post on the following two questions:
1. Can images be imported along with other content? You’ve twice in this topic said that the answer is no. However, I was told the same thing years ago by staff in these forums, both before and after I successfully imported images using the import tool. That’s why I posed this question twice above.
2. Is it possible on a WordPress.com site to have multiple (e.g. 2 or 3) sections on a single site, each with it’s own front page, header images, background, and sidebar content? I think not, but I haven’t been keeping up with developments in new themes for quite some time.
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If I can’t import images into the pages that they are attached to in a new site, then the job of saving copies of and reloading several thousand images, and then relocating each of them one by one in the proper page, appears to be too enormous to seriously consider. I would need to relocate perhaps 6-7,000 images in this manner.
Another question just occurred to me. I recall reading descriptions in topics within the last couple of years of members importing images and finding the process not working, or incompletely working. They were told to wait, because the process can be slow. Sure enough within hours they reported that the images were now displaying where expected in the imported posts.
I even seem to recall a couple of cases in recent years where a member reported imported images missing, whereupon I found the images present in their site. After informing them of this, we surmised that the import process had simply been slow, or delayed for some reason.
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1. Can images be imported along with other content? You’ve twice in this topic said that the answer is no.
No, actually. Images are not exported in the XML files, but their references are. And the importer uses those references to bring images into the new site. I recommend testing this with a small site, and actually opening up the XML file to look at it if you’re curious.
Is it possible on a WordPress.com site to have multiple (e.g. 2 or 3) sections on a single site, each with it’s own front page, header images, background, and sidebar content?
What do you mean by its own front page?
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By “import images” and “importing images” in the previous post I’m referring to importing posts with images included.
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Some forum topics regarding importing images to a WordPress.com or WordPress.org site:
Images imported from WordPress.com site to WordPress.com site:
- April 2015 – Pages: cant see pictures
- August 26, 2014 — The import didn’t upload the image files
In the above example, the member finds the issue resolved before a single response to the OP, on the same day, saying:
My mistake the files where uploaded, you can delete this topic.
WordPress.org to WordPress.com
- July 2017 — images imported, but do not display
- April 2014 – how can I import images into media library, instead of importing them as links?
WordPress.com to WordPress.org
- November 2016 – Images Failed To Import
Travelpod to WordPress.com
- June 2017 — Importing
Blogger to WordPress.org
- November 2016 — Importing content from Blogger
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Don’t worry about posts where something went wrong with the importer. In the vast majority of cases, images import correctly.
Again, they are not included in the export zip file. But they are imported, via the importer, so long as the references included in the XML still exist. Give it a shot with a small site and you’ll see what we mean. :)
Let us know what you mean by multiple front pages re: the other question and we’ll help you sort that out.
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The zip files we make do not include image files. The “references” are links in the XML files, which the importer uses to get the images from their old location.
I had not read this carefully.
No, actually. Images are not exported in the XML files, but their references are. And the importer uses those references to bring images into the new site.
And I had missed this post. I thought that both the relevant support pages and you in this thread were telling me that images were not imported at all. Sorry about that. Perhaps the Export and Import support pages could be more clear about that. Or maybe I’m the only one that finds it unclear on whether images can be exported and imported. : -)
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I said,
“Is it possible on a WordPress.com site to have multiple (e.g. 2 or 3) sections on a single site, each with it’s own front page, header images, background, and sidebar content?”
and you responded,
“What do you mean by its own front page?”
I imagine separate sections on a single website, each having the following:
- a different header image or group of random header images than the other sections,
- a different menu (header, slideout, sidebar, etc.) than the other sections,
- a different background than the other sections, and
- different widgets in its sidebar widget area.
So essentially, it would be like having multiple, different-looking sites within one. I don’t know whether specifying a different front page, as I did, might have been redundant. If one were able to set up a site with multiple sections where the header, menu, background, and sidebar is different on each section, then I perhaps any static page in each section could be used as a front page for that section.
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So essentially, it would be like having multiple, different-looking sites within one.
That is not possible on WordPress.com, no. Theoretically it might be possible in the self-hosted software by using the hooks and filters included in the WordPress software to create conditional PHP functions in the theme, and there might be WordPress themes out there that are set up to work like this, but none that are available on WordPress.com.
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