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medium-to-gatsby

A CLI to convert your medium exported .html files to gatsby .md files.

Features

  • Converts medium .html files and outputs gatsby .md files.
  • Customize output via templates
  • Downloads post images from medium and saves locally
  • Handles embedded tweets
  • Inlines github gists
  • Allows default language for code blocks.
  • Skips over drafts and post replies.
  • Generates report when done.

Installation

$ npm install -g https://github.com/jamischarles/export-medium-to-gatsby (maybe it'll go on npm eventually)

Steps

  1. Download your medium posts as an archive from medium.
  2. Install this CLI via #Installation step above
  3. Save a template file (see template section below) where you'll be running your export command.
  4. Customize the template.js file you downloaded to match the frontmatter fields your gatsby blog requires. Here you also define what folder in your blog medium images should be downloaded to.
  5. Run the CLI and use the medium-export/posts folder as the input, and for output either directly output to your content/posts folder, or copy it there after generating the files.
  6. Verify that the generated files are correct and looks good.
  7. Make any CSS and styling adjustments as needed.
  8. Do a happy dance.

CLI Usage

 Usage
    $ medium2gatsby <src_file_or_folder>

  Options
   --output, -o Destination folder for output files. Defaults to './'.
   --template, -t Template used to generate post files.
   --help, -h Shows usage instructions

  Examples
    $ medium2gatsby . -o posts -t template.js
    $ medium2gatsby 2018-04-02_Introducing-the-react-testing-library----e3a274307e65.html -o output -t template.js 
    $ medium2gatsby ~/Downloads/medium-export/posts -o . -t template.js

Recommended styling

Images and subtitles

Images and subtitles will been converted to <figure><img><figcaption>Subtitle</figcaption> same as medium used.

Gatsby injects a <p> in there. To fix spacing I suggest you add the following to your template's CSS:figure > p {margin-bottom:0px !important;}.

You can use figure figcaption {} to style image subtitles.

Fenced Links

If you used fenced links on medium to make links stand out, those links will now have show up as <a href="some-link" class="fenced-link">some text</a>. This CSS should approximate the medium fenced link style:

.fenced-link {
  background-color:#0000000d;
  font-family:monospace;  
  text-decoration:underline;
  padding:2px;
}

Customize via templates

Based on which gatsby theme you're using you may need to generate different frontmatter fields.

Here are some example template.js you can save and pass to the CLI via the -t flag.

Template ex1: Different folder for each post

  • specifies 2018-04-16 date format in frontmatter date field
  • generates a separate folder for each post ie: `content/posts/introducing-react/index.md
  • saves post images to /images2 (relative to the post folder)
  • posts will show on site as /posts/[slug-name]
  • defauls all code fences to use 'js'
module.exports = {
  render: function(data) {
    // data.published is Date ISO format: 2018-04-16T14:48:00.000Z
    var date = new Date(data.published);
    var prettyDate =
      date.getFullYear() +
      '-' +
      (date.getMonth() + 1).toString().padStart(2, 0) +
      '-' +
      date
        .getDate()
        .toString()
        .padStart(2, 0); //2018-04-16
    
    var template = `\
---
slug: "/posts/${data.titleForSlug}/"
date: ${prettyDate}
title: "${data.title}"
draft: false
description: "${data.description}"
categories: []
keywords: [${data.tags.join(',')}]
---

${data.body}
`;

    return template;
  },
  getOptions: function() {
    return {
      folderForEachSlug: true, // separate folder for each blog post, where index.md and post images will live
      imagePath: '/images2', // <img src="/images2/[filename]" >. Used in the markdown files.
      defaultCodeBlockLanguage: 'js', // code fenced by default will be ``` with no lang. If most of your code blocks are in a specific lang, set this here.
    };
  },
};

Template ex2: Same folder for all posts

  • specifies 2018-04-16T14:48:00.000Z date format (ISO, which is default) in frontmatter date field
  • saves all generated posts to same folder defined in -o options for CLI. Files are named via slug name from medium.
  • saves post images to /Users/jacharles/dev/blog/content/posts/introducing-the-react-testing-library/images
  • defauls all code fences to use '' (no language).
module.exports = {
  render: function(data) {
    var template = `\
---
slug: ${data.titleForSlug}
date: ${data.published}
title: "${data.title}"
template: "post"
draft: false
description: "${data.description}"
category: ""
tags: [${data.tags.join(',')}]
---

${data.body}
`;

    return template;
  },
  getOptions: function() {
    return {
      folderForEachSlug: false, // same folder for all posts
      imagePath: '/media', // <img src="/media/[filename]" >. Used in the markdown files.
      // This field is ignored when folderForEachSlug:true. Should be absolute. Location where medium images will be saved.
      imageFolder:
        '/Users/jacharles/dev/blog/static/media', 
      defaultCodeBlockLanguage: '', // code fenced by default will be ``` with no lang. If most of your code blocks are in a specific lang, set this here.
    };
  },
};

TODO and Help needed

I'm about ready to move on from this, but would love help with the following if anybody feels inclined:

  • Better progress / error messages. Should notify which articles fail for whichever reason
  • Error handling is very lacking in many places. Could / should be improved to be more robust especially around downloading posts / images from medium.
  • Adding tests (prefer something dead simple like mocha). Currently there are zero tests.
  • More generator targets. This repo could fairly easily be forked and expanded to include other targets like jekyll, or other static site generators. (low priority) (medium2markdown)