Backing up a Blogger Blog

Update June 2012

As Blogger have updated their interface you might find it easier to follow my new post here.  But on the whole the principles are the same, so feel free to read on if you like:

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Why would you want to backup your blog?  Under the normal course of events you probably don't need to. Google will have a level of resilience in their servers that means you aren't likely to lose your blog through any fault of theirs (or if you do so will lots of others!).

But what Google don't protect you against is you. It's really easy to play around with your template and mess it up and it's really quite easy to delete a blog by mistake.  A backup and restore is also a really easy way to create a test blog that you can play around with. If you don't understand why you would want to do that then you are probably blogging because you are a budding writer.  I am a IT person, I have 8 blogs of which 5 are currently test beds for playing.  Mostly I prefer the play to the posting!

There are 2 types of Blogger backup, your template and then your actually content (posts).

TEMPLATE
The template is the html code that controls the look and feel of your blog.  This is what you are changing when you add gadgets or change your background colour.

Design >edit html>download full template

Then click save, save the .xml file into a place where you will remember where it is.  I have a folder called template backups.  I also always change the start of the file name to be something meaningful to me.  Like 'KV_workingsummer2011.xml'.  It's long but I will know what it means if I need to restore later.

There is another way to save your template too.

Design tab>edit html.  Make sure you click the 'expand widget templates' so that it has a tick in it.  Now highlight all that text from start to end. Copy  and paste it into Notepad and save as a .txt file. This is really useful if you want to play around yourself with your code.

CONTENT

To backup your posts go to Settings>Basic>Export Blog

Now 'Download Blog'

Click Save.  Save it to a folder where you will remember where it is.  Mine is called BlogBackups.  

If you use 'jumpbreaks' the export blog function has a bug in it.  It only exports your posts up to the jump break.  The work around for this is to Settings>Site Feed Change allow blog feeds to 'Full'.

Do the export and then change it back again to 'Until Jump Break'

Blogger are aware of this issue but I don't know if they have fixed it yet, if you use jump breaks you might want to test it.  It would be easy to import into a test blog and see if the full post is there.

COMMENTS

If you let Blogger manage your comments then they will be included in the export but my commenting software is IntenseDebate so my comments are not backed up as a part of the Blogger Export.  To backup my comments I have to go to the IntenseDebate site and generate an xml file.  It is easy to do, just follow the links.  Discus will have something similar.

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How to create an 'About Me' page using Blogger

Update 2012

As Blogger have updated their interface I have done a new post on how to create a stand alone page. You might find it more useful to go look at that, but the principles are the same.

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Before ever making changes to your blog CREATE A BACKUP.

From the top Design tab, choose 'edit html', then click download full template

Then click save, save the .xml file into a place where you will remember where it is.  I have a folder called templatebackups.  I also always change the start of the file name to be something meaningful to me.  Like 'KV_workingbeforepages_template-5184955426276325164.xml'.  It's long but I will know what it means if I need to restore later.

Pages are different to blog posts, they don't sit in your time line, they are stand alone.
Create a page from your posting tab, instead of clicking on the New Post tab, go to Edit Pages (even if it is your first)

Once you have clicked on 'New Page', the editing is the same as if you were working on a post.  But  this is going to be static information for someone to come and find out about who you are. 

Once you have clicked publish page, if it is your first, you should get a page like this.  This allows you to add either tabs to your blog, each of which are your pages plus a home, or a side bar list.   

If your blog template already includes a 'Home' tab you may find your new pages are automatically added as new tabs (if you need to manage this further look here)

If you need to create the tabs yourself, because you missed the initial add a gadget option or your template doesn't already have them, then simply add the Blogger Pages gadget.  Go to the top level Design tab, then page elements and click on Add Gadget. 

The pages gadget is one of the basics, see it 4th one down here.

Don't worry about placement, once you've added the gadget, you can drag it around. Towards the top for tabs, or into the sidebar for a side list.

 
 
 
 
 
 
You might not want to include all pages in this gadget.  I use a stand alone page for my Disclaimer.
 

A link to a page is easily placed by using the html/java script gadget. With a link to your page in it. 
 
 
<a href="http://kelloggsville.blogspot.com/p/disclosure-of-material-connection.html">Disclosure Policy</a> 
 

To find the link address just view the page and copy and paste the url from your browser bar.


 
 
 
 
 
I hope you find this useful.

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