ljtowordpress

Script to convert a LiveJournal dump made by LJBackup to a WordPress-friendly file that can be imported. For more information, see the project homepage as well as this thread on the WordPress forums.

This script was created at a time when the WordPress import from LiveJournal was not working - if that's working, you should probably use that instead as it's likely to be better supported.

What does it do?

• Preserves post titles, dates, and content
• Can optionally import protected posts from LJ and set a password on them in WordPress.
• Keeps a similar URL scheme, so a link to http://gregstoll.wordpress.com/495263 will bring up the post originally made at http://gregstoll.livejournal.com/495263.html
• Fixes links to other LJ entries in your journal to point to the corresponding WordPress entry
• Preserves comment bodies, including nesting
• Preserves tags
• Turns <lj-user> tags into a link to that user's LiveJournal

What does it not do?

• Does not preserve mood, music, or location
• Does not copy anything else from your journal other than posts (i.e. no blog title, global links, etc)
• Does preserve the name of the author of comments, but if it's anyone other than the journal author it makes no attempt to set the author's URL, etc
• <lj-cut> tags don't get displayed, although their content is displayed
• Does not set any excerpts for posts
• Does not preserve userpic or any images you have stored on LJ
• Does not preserve the author of posts (all will be set to the owner of the journal), so this probably won't work well with communities
• Does not convert <lj-embed> tags

Caveats

The way LJ formats posts is a little weird, which doesn't play nice with some WordPress themes. For example, the Franklin theme has weird spacing for <br>'s.

How to use this

1. Use LJBackup to make a backup of your LiveJournal
2. Unzip file to a folder on your computer
3. Move allPostsToWordpress.py to the same directory as allPosts.xml
4. In order to run this script, you need to have Python 3 installed
5. Starting on line 135 of allPostsToWordpress.py, you'll see the arguments that can be used. Choose one of the following formats (and customize for your files as needed):
   • python3 allPostsToWordpress.py -i allPosts.xml -o wordpress.xml -w "" -n
   • python3 allPostsToWordpress.py --input=allPosts.xml --output=wordpress.xml --wpUrl='' --noProtectedPosts
6. In the above command of your choice, name the .xml file to whatever you want or keep it as wordpress.xml
7. Run the command in the terminal of your choice and it'll go through your Livejournal to export everything to wordpress.xml
8. Once completed, in your WordPress installation, go to the Dashboard and look for Tools > Import
9. Choose Install Now under the WordPress importer
10. Click Start Import, then click on the cloud icon and select the WordPress XML file
11. Click through a few more times, then wait a while :-)
12. All your posts should now be in your WordPress installation