LiveJournal to Blogger conversion/import tool - lj2blogger
Sept 29, 2007 update - An updated tool (renamed to Blog2Blog)is available see this post for download. Regardless, We will keep this post and the download around for posterities sake. My advice would be to try the current blog2blog tool which has better error handling and updated functionality but the choice is yours.
As unknown surprise to the Blogger staff that picked my blog for the blog of note, I've been working on a tool to import LiveJournal blogs into Blogger. I may as well post this today for all of you incoming viewers. I wish I had something witty and amusing to say in addition, but words fail. I am certain I'll think of something in a couple of days, my mind just works that way -- slow and steady?
Like many good ideas, this one came from my wife who wanted to migrate from LiveJournal to Blogger. I looked around and didn't find a conversion tool after several attempts to Google it. Thus, as a good software developer I spent the time to learn several things and build a tool.
Note, I would say this is a Beta at this point. It works well for the scenarios I've run it through. Please feel free to comment/suggest improvements through the blog comments.
Download lj2blogger (1.5.0 updated Feb 12, 2007)
The above is a .zip with a Windows installer. To install unzip and double click on setup.exe.
After installing there is a small manual:
"LiveJournal2Blogger Manual.rtf" at C:\Program Files\Cooley Computing Inc\lj2blogger\doc (default location).
To save you the time of opening this file it is below.
LiveJournal2Blogger (lj2blogger)
Introduction
This tool migrates a blog from LiveJournal to Blogger. It uses the public API of LiveJournal and the public API of Blogger to extract data from Livejournal and create equivalent entries in a Blogger account with the appropriate date/time of the orignal entry.
Features
- Download Journal Entries from LiveJournal
- A simple read-only viewer of downloaded entries
- Publish Journal Entries to Blogger
* upload private entries (it will make them public)
* parse entries and wrap http:// entries with HTML to make them active links
- Delete ALL entries for a Blogger journal
- Save/Load journal entries to/from file.
Usage
The designed usage pattern is below. For issues please feel free to contact me at pcooley.newsgroups at gmail.com.
Download from LiveJournal
1. Enter username (e.g. user1).
2. Enter password (e.g. pass1).
3. Enter lj-url (the URL of the livejournal you wish to download): http://user1.livejournal.com.
4. (optional) if necessary modify the api-url of your journal. This is autopopulated with a typical value.
5. Press Fetch from LiveJournal Button.
View Entries (optional)
6. Press View Entries Button.
7. Use the Entry Number Dialog to change the entry being viewed.
8. When complete Press the upper right close window (the X).
Save Entries (optional)
1. Press Save Entries
2. Choose the filename, it is an XML file with the extension (*.J2B)
Note: once saved you can load these Entries without downloading from LiveJournal (use the Load Entries button)
Publish to Blogger
9. Enter username (e.g. user1).
10. Enter password (e.g. pass1).
11. Enter lj-url (the URL of the livejournal you wish to download): http://user1.blogspot.com.
12. (optional) if necessary modify the api-url of your journal. This is autopopulated with a typical value. (if you have a non-upgraded blog take note; for non-upgraded blogs you will need to update the api-url! To find the URL you will have to look at the page source of your journal. See below for more information)
13. (optional) select options you please; publish private entries and/or wrap http:// with <a href=”…”>.
14. Press Publish to Blogger Button.
15. Select the Entries you will to publish (defaults to all entries).
Further instructions (non-upgraded blogs):
For non-upgraded blogs you will need to find your feed URI.
-- To do this you will have to use your favorite browser and type in the URL of you blog (e.g. http://user1.blogspot.com)
-- Using your browser you will need to 'View Source'. This differs slightly between browsers.
-- In the source look for link rel="service.post" type="application/atom+xml" title="User1 (Atom 1.0)"
-- The api-url is the http:// location in the href
Additionally it is not possible to post to an old journal with a new 'google' integrated account (for those of you that have only partially upgraded all your journals). Addtionally the publish dates of your livejournal won't be regarded. This is part of the API limitation.
Known issues
• The Application is not multithreaded – The UI refreshes slowly while connected to LiveJournal/Blogger.
• Does not import/export comment
• found 01/02/2007 - defaults for api-url only work with upgraded blogs.
• There are connection problems with the XMLRPC interface to livejournal, but immediately retrying Fetch from Livejournal seems to connect sucessfully. Just try a couple of times. No harm should be done.
It appears today I made the blogs of note on blogger.com Blogs of Note. Incoming hits galore!
Happy Blogging
Keywords: Blog migration tool, LiveJournal to Blogger migration, LiveJournal to Blogger conversion, transfer blog to Blogger, Import blogs from LiveJournal into Blogger, lj2blogger, livejournal2blogger, migrate livejournal blogger.
