Export Summary: what each option does

Features
1

Spent some time exploring each Export Option in Joplin. Thought it might be useful to capture some of it here. If cleaned up this might eventually be something that could be added to joplin/readme/apps/import_export.md at dev · laurent22/joplin · GitHub

Export Summary

Basics

Note titles and original attachment filenames are separate metadata from the note or attachment content data. So when you attach a file that original filename is saved as metadata. When you create a Note title that too is metadata and not Note content.

Behavior

The export choices for Notebook and Note are the same (see below) except the PDF option which only appears for Note export.

If you export a Notebook of Notes as HTML - HTML File you only get a single note or file (not many notes as one file as your would expect). Conversely if you select a single note to export as an HTML - Html Directory you only get one note exported. You probably do not want to do either of these.

Exports where filenames are constructed from Note title metadata or the original attachment filename metadata seem to truncate at 51 characters. This is possibly to avoid file naming limits. Duplicate file names seem to follow some unknown duplication rule like name.md and name-1.md to accommodate unique file creation.

JEX Joplin Export File

  • single file of everything in a profile
  • not human readable

Best for a native complete representation like backups but only if you have software like Joplin that can read it.

RAW - Joplin Export Directory

  • each "text object" in the database gets a markdown file (e.g. note.md, notebook.md, attachment.md, etc.)
  • each "binary/attachment object" in the database gets a file with the original file type
  • flat directory of all markdown files in export directory
  • flat directory of all binaries/attachments under export directory named /resources
    • not /_resources with underscore like other export options
  • folder structure or hierarchy preserved via ids in properties but not easy to human interpret or reconstruct
  • titles and attachment file names preserved in properties not file names
  • file names are property id names e.g. {hexnumber}.md, {hexnumber}.jpg, etc

Best for a complete representation that is easy for code but not for humans to work with.

MD - Markdown

  • Summary
    • Essentially, take a RAW export. But recreate the Notebook folder structure and title files by note title some-note-name.md or original attachment filename image.jpg.
    • Meta data is lost (no ids, no other properties like created changed etc.).
    • Put all the attachments in one flat folder (/_resources) regardless of what note it was attached to.
  • hierarchy of notes is converted to folder structure
  • flat directory of attachments in /_resources
    • not named /resources maybe to avoid name collision with notebooks named resources
  • original note titles and attachment file names preserved as file names e.g. note-name.md, image-name.jpg, etc.
  • object metadata is lost

Best for partial representation if you don't want any metadata and titles other than potentially truncated file names.

MD - Markdown + Frontmatter

  • Same as MD - Markdown but some metadata is kept. Basic metadata as properties in the md files (title, updated, created, latitude, longitude, altitude).

Best for partial exporting to other systems but all your notes will have frontmatter.

HTML - Html File

  • exports a single note regardless if an entire notebook is selected
  • the html file is named after the current date
  • image attachments are embedded in the html as data:image/jpeg;base64

Best for single file all in one export of a single Note in HTML.

HTML - Html Directory

  • folder structure preserved
  • note names preserved as filenames e.g. note-name.html
  • embedded images embedded in each html file as data:image/jpeg;base64
  • image names preserved as <img> tag alt text
  • each folder has a subfolder for pluginAssets which has files to help render the html like ./highlight.js/atom-one-light.css

Best for partial representation if you need HTML files but /_resource filenames will not be original filenames.

PDF - PDF File

  • simply exports to a PDF file

Best for single file all in one export of a single Note in PDF format.

Export issues: is this the state of the art in Joplin?