The term "exporting" is analogous to how it is used in the real world... You are sending the data away from where you are to another place. The analogy breaks down in that it is a copy of the data, unlike exported bananas that are no longer sitting on the dock in South America.
The idea of exporting computer data usually implies the transformation of the data. For instance, you can export a Word file into a PDF file. Once the file is exported as a pdf, it can no longer be brought back into Word for editing.
The opposite of " Exporting" is "Importing". If you are importing, again there is a transformation of the data. Why would you care? well, importing is not perfect. Just like translating froign languages, sometimes, details can be lost in translation.

Another pair of terms that are commonly used for the same idea is "Upload" and "Download". You "Download" data from a remote computer to your PC or you upload data from your PC to a remote computer.
I your case, I assume that you would "Export" your blog data from the website where you are hosting your blog, to your own computer ('s hard drive) .
For a more specific answer as to where to go from here, you will want to describe what you want to do with your exported data.
Do you want to publish it to another platform? Which one?
Do you want to print it out so you can let your grandmother read it?
Are you backing it up so that you can restore the blog in the case of data loss on your blog's host?
It sounds like you may want to re-work your writings and publish them as a book or article.
What tool would you use to edit? DO you know where the data is kept on your PC? What format will your publisher want to recive the work in? How will you get the finished work to your publisher?

 

The term "exporting" is analogous to how it is used in the real world... You are sending the data away from where you are to another place. The analogy breaks down in that it is a copy of the data, unlike exported bananas that are no longer sitting on the dock in South America.
The idea of exporting computer data usually implies the transformation of the data. For instance, you can export a Word file into a PDF file. Once the file is exported as a pdf, it can no longer be brought back into Word for editing.
The opposite of " Exporting" is "Importing". If you are importing, again there is a transformation of the data. Why would you care? well, importing is not perfect. Just like translating froign languages, sometimes, details can be lost in translation.

Another pair of terms that are commonly used for the same idea is "Upload" and "Download". You "Download" data from a remote computer to your PC or you upload data from your PC to a remote computer.
I your case, I assume that you would "Export" your blog data from the website where you are hosting your blog, to your own computer ('s hard drive) .
For a more specific answer as to where to go from here, you will want to describe what you want to do with your exported data.
Do you want to publish it to another platform? Which one?
Do you want to print it out so you can let your grandmother read it?
Are you backing it up so that you can restore the blog in the case of data loss on your blog's host?
It sounds like you may want to re-work your writings and publish them as a book or article.
What tool would you use to edit? DO you know where the data is kept on your PC? What format will your publisher want to recive the work in? How will you get the finished work to your publisher?

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain this to me. I am sure I am getting nearer to understanding.
My aim would be to have a copy of all my postings in Open Office Writer so that I can freely edit for publication where required with a view to possible publication. The exported data are kept as .xml files in a my file explorer. This is a long series of entries which I cannot make head nor tail of.
If you can give me a little more help to do what I want, if it is actually possible, I would greatly appreciate it.
I will be away from here until Tuesday. Allan.

 

I just had a look at what Wordpress has to say about the exporting process https://en.support.wordpress.com/export/
I can see how it can be a bit daunting.
The good news is that as the data is all there in the XML file,.
You could use a text editor to strip out all the XML stuff you dont care about, leaving you with your posts. That is the bad news, The process is quite laborius
Search and Replace is your freind here. I would not be surprised if there are tools to do this automatically, but In my 5 minute search I did not find any.

You may find it easier to just copy / paste from your wordpress site.

 

Most computer programs have their own way of organizing and encoding data into the files they save. They can recognize their own files but not files from another program. To export a file, the computer has to save data in a format that another program will recognize. The programmers must build this capability into the program itself, so programs are able to export in some file formats and not in others.

In your case, all your WordPress post data is stored in MySQL Database and you need to export the data from the database for keeping it safe for reuse later.

 

This plugin looks like it will export your WordPress posts as Word documents.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/aspose-doc-exporter/

Don't forget to like helpful replies and mark thread as solved when it is.

 

This plugin looks like it will export your WordPress posts as Word documents.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/aspose-doc-exporter/

Don't forget to like helpful replies and mark thread as solved when it is.

This is getting very complicated, and really beyond my technical understanding.
Is there any reason why I could not copy and past my posts into a separate file on my computer? I know that copying and pasting 300 posts of 500 words each would be very laborious, unless I could do them in bulk. But would these files not be in Word to enable me to edit and, if necessary publish?

 

I totally understand that installing a plugin to export your data may be beyond what you feel you can do. I have not worked with Wordpress plugins and did not read the installation instructions so I don't know how hard it is.
Doing the copy paste thing is something that you say you can do, but as you say, it will take a long time.
In IT, we are always trying to strike that balance - Do we spend the time to automate a tasks or do we just do it manually. One of the benefits of doing it manually is that it will give you the opportunity to edit as you go. You can organize your posts into separate files, and omit anything extraneous.

 

Installing a plugin is not difficult in Wordpress. Just login to the backend where you type up your posts select Plugins > Add New type apose into the search box at the top a list of possible results will be shown select the correct one Click Install once it has installed the button become Activate and that is is the plugin is then installed. Read the plugin information on how to then use it.

Why do you want to store your posts separately from our Blog? If you republish them Google and other search engines do not like duplicate posts they regard them as spam. In future, write your posts in Word and store them. The copy and paste the Word document into the post on your site. You then have a copy on your own computer as well as your site just change your workflow.

 

Thank you for this. The change of workflow solves my problem for present and all future postings without the plug-in. It makes sense. I am left with the problem of getting a copy of all past postings (200+ postings, each of 500 words of straight-forward text), other than laborious copy and paste of each individual posting.
Incidentally I have no intention of publishing on google. It would eventually be published as a small book, if I am still alive. Allan

 

If you want to publish them as a book then the Anthologize plugin is probably the one you want. It creates a pdf book for you of all or a selection of your posts.

 

This sounds good. The problem with .pdf is that I cannot edit. Can .pdf be changed to Word. There is never an end to editing. Allan

 

Yes the full version of Adobe Acrobat or one of the many free online converters will do this.

Thank you for this. It looks as if the Anthologise plug-in would solve my problem, but where can I find it? I have explored the plug-in lists and I cannot find it

 

https://wordpress.org/plugins/anthologize/

 

Thank you again. I downloaded the link, and I have it in my Download folder as a Zipped file, but I cannot get it to connect with Wordpress. Allan

 

The easiest way is go to the Wordpress dashboard select plugins > add new > upload and select the zip file and then once it is installed then activate it. In future go to the dashboard select plugins > add new and then put the name into the search box and it will download and install straight into your Wordpress site.

You need to read up on how to use Wordpress and watch some of the videos on YouTub. This is basic stuff that is easy to learn.