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Bulk article export

The Articles dashboard exports multiple articles in one operation. Pick the articles, pick a format, pick whether you want a ZIP of individual files or one combined document, and click Export.

When to use it

  • An umbrella series with several constituent articles you want to ship together.
  • Migrating a topic to another platform that prefers one document over many.
  • Building a long-form anthology PDF of a year's posts.

For a single article, the per-article Export action in the row menu is faster.

Selecting articles

  • Each tile (grid view) and each row (list view) shows a checkbox. Click to select.
  • The "Select all" checkbox at the top selects every article currently visible after filters - not every article in the database.
  • Selecting more than 50 shows a soft warning ("may take a while"). Selecting more than 200 disables the Export button (server limit).

Filtering

The dashboard filter quartet is status, topic, series, and tag. Filters compose with AND - each one narrows the result further.

  • Status: draft / ready / published / archived (button row).
  • Topic: dropdown populated from the topics in your articles (settings-managed under Settings > Topics).
  • Series: dropdown populated from each distinct series name in your articles. Series is a flat free-string today; nested sub-series is a future feature.
  • Tag: dropdown populated from each distinct tag in your articles. The filter checks list membership (an article tagged "python" matches; one tagged "pythonista" does not).

Filter state syncs to the URL so you can bookmark or share a filtered view. Selection itself does NOT sync to the URL - it's per-session.

Output modes

After selecting articles, the bulk action bar shows:

  • Format: Markdown, HTML, PDF, DOCX. Same four formats the per-article export supports.
  • Output: ZIP archive vs Combined document.

ZIP archive

One file per article in the chosen format, packed as a ZIP. Filename pattern is <slug>.<ext> (e.g. cosmos-introduction.md). When two articles share a slug, the second gets -2, the third -3, and so on.

Cover ZIP filename: articles-YYYY-MM-DD.zip.

Combined document

All articles concatenated into one file:

  • Markdown: ## <Title> heading per article, articles separated by ---. No per-article frontmatter.
  • HTML: standalone HTML with a table of contents and id-anchored sections, suitable for opening in a browser.
  • PDF: each article becomes a chapter, auto-generated TOC, pandoc + xelatex.
  • DOCX: each article is a top-level heading, auto-generated TOC.

Article order in the combined document is the order shown on screen (the dashboard's current sort order).

Limits and behaviour

  • Hard server limit: 200 articles per export. The Export button is disabled past 200.
  • Soft warning at 50: a non-blocking note about wait time.
  • Combined-export timeout: 180 seconds. If a combined PDF needs longer (very large selection, many embedded images), reduce the selection or split into smaller batches.
  • Unreachable images fail loud: if any selected article references a broken image URL, the combined Pandoc step fails and the error message names which article. Fix the image (or unselect the article) and try again.

What does not happen

  • No bulk delete, bulk publish, or bulk tag. Bulk export is the only multi-article operation today.
  • No drag-drop ordering inside an export dialog. The order is the dashboard's current sort order.
  • No per-article format override. All selected articles export to the same format.

Tips

  • Sort the dashboard by date descending (the default) and select the top N articles for a "recent posts" anthology.
  • Filter by series, click "Select all", export combined PDF for a series collection.
  • Filter by tag, then "Select all", then ZIP markdown if you want to feed the result into another tool.

Bulk delete

The same selection model that drives bulk export also drives bulk delete. Pick the articles (filter + Select all, or click checkboxes individually), then click the red Löschen button next to Export. A dropdown offers two paths:

  • In Papierkorb verschieben — soft-delete. The articles move to the trash and the success toast offers an Undo button for ~10 seconds. The Undo restores every article that was successfully moved.
  • Endgültig löschen — permanent delete. Opens a confirmation dialog that shows the count, the active filter description (e.g. "Status=draft, Sprache=de"), and a numeric input. You must type the count to enable the confirm button. No undo — the data and its cascade children (publications, assets, import-source) are gone.

The bulk-delete button is disabled when fewer than 2 articles are selected. For a single article, use the row-menu delete action — bulk-delete UX would be theater for count=1.

Server-side cap: 200 articles per call (matches bulk export). Selecting more shows a warning over 50, hard-blocks the button over 200.