Wordpress Export Import Site Escaped Character Challenges - "

General, WordPress

When you export a Wordpress site and import the site into a new Wordpress site you will notice that a few HTML entities that are not allowed in an XML output got escaped. In simple terms, you will see a lot of " and if you use a Mac OSx system, your will see - “ and ” displayed as content in your blog pages.

Well here’s a way to correct them.

  1. Identify a list of these escaped XML entities using the HTML Entities Table. For most folks it would be just "

  2. Within your hosting environment, find out how to get to a MySQL query window to run your SQL commands.

  3. Backup your current database. And know how to restore it. (I am not liable).

  4. Run the following SQL command:

[sourcecode]

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content= REPLACE(post_content, ‘"’, ‘"’); UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content=REPLACE(post_content, ‘<’, ‘<’); UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content=REPLACE(post_content, ‘>’, ‘>’);

[/sourcecode]

Here in this example, I’m replacing all occurrences of &quot; with a double-quote. Now load up a sample blog article and verify that the issue is resolved.

Repeat steps-4 for each escaped HTML entity.

Now you’re all set to begin blogging with your newly imported WordPress blog. Happy Blogging!