QH Markdown Exporter

by quyettran298

Description

QH Markdown Exporter lets you export any combination of post types and statuses as Markdown files — perfectly formatted for Obsidian and other Markdown-based note-taking apps.

Key features:

YAML frontmatter — title, source URL, author, published date, description, tags, and full hierarchical categories
Extended metadata (optional, on by default) — adds word_count, outline (ordered H2–H4 heading list), and internal_links (structured list of links to other exported posts) to each file’s frontmatter — ideal for AI/SEO tooling
Clean content — strips sidebars, widgets, navigation, related-posts blocks, social-share plugins, and other injected noise
GFM tables — converts HTML tables to GitHub-Flavored Markdown pipe tables
Bulk export — export your entire site at once or filter by post type, status, and date range
Large-site support — chunked AJAX export with live progress bar handles sites with thousands of posts
Sitemap export — optional sitemap.json bundled in the ZIP: hierarchical pages tree, posts grouped by category, and custom post types — ready for AI/LLM ingestion
No dependencies — pure PHP with no external libraries required

Output format:

Each post becomes a .md file named YYYY-MM-DD_Post Title.md containing:

title: “Post Title”
source: “https://yoursite.com/post-slug/”
author:
– “[[Author Name]]”
published: 2024-01-15
created: 2024-06-01
description: “Post excerpt or auto-generated summary…”
tags:
– tag-name
categories:
– “Parent > Child”
word_count: 1250
outline:
– “## What This Post Covers”
– “### Step One”
– “## Conclusion”
internal_links:
– slug: “related-post-slug”
anchor: “related post title”

url: “https://yoursite.com/related-post-slug/”

Post Title

Post body in Markdown…
`

The word_count, outline, and internal_links fields are added when Include extended metadata is ticked (default: on). internal_links only lists links to other posts included in the current export — external links and links to non-exported content are excluded.

All files are bundled into a single ZIP archive named {sitename}_md_export_YYYY-MM-DD.zip.

Installation

Upload the qh-markdown-exporter folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory, or install directly through the WordPress plugin screen.
Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen in WordPress.
Go to Tools MD Exporter.
Select the post types and statuses you want to export, optionally set a date range, and click Export & Download ZIP.

Faq

Which post types are supported?

All public post types registered on your site are available. The attachment post type is excluded by default.

How does it handle large sites?

For exports above 100 posts the plugin automatically switches to a chunked AJAX export. You will see a live progress bar. Each batch of 100 posts is processed separately to avoid server timeouts.

Does it export images?

Image tags are converted to Markdown ![alt](src) format pointing to the original URLs on your site. The image files themselves are not downloaded or included in the ZIP.

What capability is required to use the exporter?

Users must have the export capability (Editor role and above by default).

Will it conflict with page-builder plugins?

The exporter reads raw post_content and processes it through do_blocks() (Gutenberg) then converts HTML to Markdown. It intentionally bypasses the_content filters to avoid injected content from page builders and other plugins.

Reviews

Changelog

2.2.4

Prevented plugin activation fatal errors when an incomplete release package is missing includes/v3-handlers.php.
Entitron V3 export now checks both V3 release files before enabling the V3 export button and reports the exact missing files in wp-admin.
Kept the split V3 handler file while loading it only when it is present.

2.2.3

Removed legacy Entitron V2 builder code that is no longer used by the V3 export flow.
Removed stale V2-only comments and unused link-count helper code.
Replaced inline progress visibility styles with markup/CSS state and kept the single export button behavior.

2.2.2

Fixed the release package for Entitron V3 export so includes/class-export-v3-builder.php is included with the plugin.
Added an install integrity check for the Entitron V3 builder file. If a server has an incomplete plugin upload, the export page now shows a clear admin error instead of a PHP fatal error.

2.1.0

Chunked V3 export — Entitron V3 export now uses a three-phase AJAX flow (Prepare Chunk Finalize) instead of a single synchronous POST. Eliminates HTTP 503 (Varnish timeout) and PHP fatal errors (memory exhaustion) on large sites.
Single DOM per post — V3 builder now uses one DOMDocument per post instead of three, reducing peak memory by ~60%.
File-based JSONL append — articles.jsonl is built incrementally on disk using fopen('ab') + flock(LOCK_EX) instead of in-memory accumulation. Handles 10,000+ posts without OOM.
Zero-copy ZIP — ZipArchive::addFile() for large articles.jsonl files (no memory buffer).
Error handling — register_shutdown_function + try/catch + wp_send_json_error on every V3 AJAX handler. Legacy sync handler also wrapped.
PHP 7.4 compatibility — no match, readonly, or enum syntax. Uses array() where appropriate.
Output schema unchanged — manifest.json + articles.jsonl + taxonomy.json, same format as v2.0.0.

2.0.0

Entitron export — new “Export for Entitron” button generates a JSONL-based ZIP for the Entitron SEO Analyzer (V2 format).
V2 format files: entitron_manifest.json (detection sentinel + package metadata), articles.jsonl (one record per post with full content and metadata), links.jsonl (raw internal link edges with before/after text context), taxonomy.json (full categories + tags hierarchy), site_inventory.json (site-wide totals, date range, and languages).
Link context extraction — each internal link edge captures 60-character before/after snippet and anchor text, enabling downstream tools to understand link intent.
Link count aggregation — articles.jsonl includes internal_links_in, internal_links_out, and external_links_out counts per post.
Shared traits — introduced reusable link context and link count helpers for Entitron exports.

1.6.0

Added Include extended metadata option (enabled by default) — appends three new fields to each file’s YAML frontmatter:
- word_count — integer word count of the post body (plain text, no HTML).
- outline — ordered list of H2, H3, and H4 headings with Markdown prefix (##, ###, ####).
- internal_links — structured list of links that point to other posts included in the same export, each with slug, anchor text, and canonical url. Links to pages, categories, or posts outside the export set are excluded, preventing false “broken link” reports in downstream tools.
Extended metadata can be disabled by unchecking the option — the export then produces the same output as previous versions.

1.5.1

Refactored sitemap.json output for cleaner AI/LLM consumption.
Replaced posts_by_category object (dynamic keys) with a categories array — each category has id (slug), name, and posts.
Deduplicated posts: each post now appears only once, under its primary category.
Decoded HTML entities in all titles (& &, etc.).
Filtered out internal builder CPTs (Elementor library, Gutenberg reusable blocks, etc.) using the show_in_nav_menus flag.
Converted custom_post_types from a slug-keyed object to a typed array { type, label, posts }.
Added metadata block: site URL, generation date, total_pages, total_categories, total_posts.

1.5.0

Added optional sitemap.json export — tick “Include sitemap.json” in the export form to bundle a site structure file into the ZIP.
Sitemap includes: hierarchical pages tree (parent child), posts grouped by category, and public custom post types.
Sitemap reflects the live site and intentionally ignores any date-range filters set on the export form.

1.4.0

Renamed plugin to “QH Markdown Exporter” with slug qh-markdown-exporter for WordPress.org compliance.
Renamed all internal prefixes from pme_/PME_ (3 chars) to qhmaex_/QHMAEX_ (6 chars) to meet the 4+ character prefix requirement.
Updated text domain from post-markdown-exporter to qh-markdown-exporter across all files.
Fixed upload directory path to use wp_upload_dir() instead of hardcoded WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/uploads/'.

1.3.0

Renamed plugin to “Post Markdown Exporter” for WordPress.org compliance.
Fixed output escaping to meet WordPress coding standards.
Replaced unlink() with wp_delete_file() and file_put_contents() with WP_Filesystem.
Added wp_unslash() to all sanitized input handling.
Fixed i18n placeholder ordering in translatable strings.
Updated “Tested up to” to WordPress 6.9.

QH Markdown Exporter