Import & Export
Overview
Documentation → Import & Export moves your docs in and out of the site:
- Import a spreadsheet to add docs in bulk, or to update titles, excerpts, products and brands across the whole library.
- Export every doc as a spreadsheet (CSV) to edit or keep, or as a JSON file to copy the library to another Dirigible site.
You can also get there from the Import and Export buttons beside Add New at the top of All Docs.
You need an Editor or Administrator account. An export lists every doc, including Selected users docs, so authors can't export. Importing also needs permission to upload files.
Export
- Go to Documentation → Import & Export and stay on the Export tab.
- Choose Spreadsheet (CSV) to open the file in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, or JSON to import it on another Dirigible site.
- Turn on Include drafts and private ones if you want those too. Off, the file holds only published docs.
- Select Download export file.
A Selected users doc's File is exported as its doc download link, not the file's own address. That link still only works for people allowed to see the doc.
Import a spreadsheet
The quickest start is Download a blank spreadsheet on the Export tab: it has every column with the right header. Or export your current library, edit it, and import it back.
- Fill in one row per doc. Only Title is required. Leave out any column you don't need.
- Save it as CSV (in Excel: File → Save As → CSV UTF-8).
- Go to the Import tab and drop the file on the box, or select Choose a file.
- Nothing changes yet. You see every row with what will happen to it:
- New: the doc isn't on this site, so it's added.
- Update: the doc is already here and the row has changes. The list names them (Excerpt, Doc Products…).
- Skip (No changes): the doc is already here and nothing differs.
- Error: the row can't be imported, for example because its title is empty.
- Untick any row you don't want brought in.
- Choose what happens to docs already on the site: Update it from the file, or Leave it as it is (only add new ones). If the file has no Status column, choose whether new docs are added Published or as Drafts.
- Select Import. Keep the page open until it finishes. If it's interrupted, open the page again and select Resume import: nothing is added twice.
Columns
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Title | The doc's title. |
| File | The address of a file that's already in this site's Media Library, like one you copied from the media item's File URL. Files aren't downloaded: a file from anywhere else is left off, and the preview says so. Upload it, then pick it in the editor. |
| YouTube Video | A YouTube watch, share or Shorts address. |
| Redirect file to this page | Yes or No. |
| Access | Selected users limits the doc to signed-in people you choose. Public leaves the doc's access as it is (see below). |
| Body | The longer copy on the doc's page. HTML works. |
| Excerpt | The short summary on cards. |
| Doc Types, Doc Products, Doc Brands | Names separated by ` |
| Order | A number, for lists sorted in a custom order. |
| Status | Published, Draft, Pending or Private. |
| Slug | The last part of the doc's web address. Leave it out to have it made from the title. |
Column headers can be in any case, and a small typo is fine: the preview tells you how each header was read, and lists any it ignored.
Access is never opened up by an import
An import can limit a doc, but it can't make a limited doc public:
- Selected users in the Access column limits the doc. A value the import doesn't recognize, like "Members only", is read as Selected users too, and the preview says so.
- Public never changes a doc that's already Selected users. To open a doc to everyone, change Access in the editor.
- Allowed Users are never imported or exported: the people on one site aren't the people on another. A doc that becomes Selected users through an import has nobody chosen yet, so only people who can edit docs can see it until you pick its Allowed Users in the editor. The preview flags those rows.
A doc's file moves to private storage after an import limits it, the same as when you save it in the editor. See Usage → Member access.
Updating docs that are already on the site
A row updates an existing doc when it has the same web address (Slug). Otherwise it needs the same title, and the same File when the row has one, so two products' "Installation Guide" docs stay apart. The preview shows which doc each row matched and why.
Only what's in the spreadsheet changes. An empty cell never clears anything, so you can import a sheet with just titles and new products without touching anyone's file or body. To clear a field, edit that doc.
Updated docs keep their status and web address.
Copy docs to another Dirigible site
Export as JSON on one site and import the file on the other. A JSON file carries titles, excerpts, bodies exactly as written, videos, access, order, and all three kinds of terms.
Files don't come along: upload them on the new site first, then pick each doc's file in the editor. Docs that were Selected users arrive as Selected users with nobody chosen yet.
Undo an import
When an import finishes, select Undo this import. It deletes the docs that import added and the terms it added, and puts every doc it updated back exactly as it was, access included. A doc edited after the import is left as it is and listed, and a term that something else now uses is kept. Undo stays available for 7 days.
