Bye Wordpress!

Written by Chip

Tuesday, 01 April 2008 21:28

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Bye Wordpress!
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Exporting Comments

This tool does not export WordPress comments. However you can use existing Joomla components i.e. JoomlaComment to import your WP comments into Joomla. JoomlaComment would need your exported WP posts to retain its original IDs, so ensure that you've checked "Preserve WP IDs" before you start exporting your posts. (Thanks Simon)

Warning: If you already have articles in Joomla that have the same IDs as some of your posts in WP, you may encounter some errors.

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Comments (98)

Can you use JComments from Joomlatune? Or yvComments to import the comments? Does it matter which comment component you use?

Owner's reply:

This version of the tool does not support comment importing. However there are users that use comment components that allow the importing of WP comments (i.e. JoomlaComment). You'd probably have to import your WP comments separately via these components.

I was able to get all text from my

www.indianxxxxxxxxxxx.com to

www.asianxxxxxxxxxxxx.com

thank yo so very much , your routine helped me get the text and images , i will now do the part of organizing.

thank you once again and appreciate your help.

Sandeep

www.besxxxxxtog.com

(edited by Admin)

Dear Sir/Madame
I saw, and then tried out your converter. It really would be a useful feature, because i would like to move from wordpress too, and i have a lot of posts.

The main problem with the converter: it gets data from the wordpress exported xml file, where formatting (mainly br tags, line breaks) are missing. This way the imported content showes up all messed up in the joomla end.
Are there any possibility to get the line breaks too? So the content would appear in a formatted way? I hope so.

Please, answer, and thanks for your work!

Owner's reply:

Hi,

One of our readers (Snowman in Post #82) suggested:

"Trouble with paragraph spacing can be solved with the WP plugin PS Disable Auto Formatting. Install and use it on all posts (batch) before exporting to XML. IN this way blank spaces is replaced by that Joomla understands."

Please give this a try and let us know what happens.

Thanks You Rock It Worked But I dont know how to show all post on 1 page please tell me how to if you can thanks again

Hello Thanks For Replying

Please Email me and i will send you it via email

I Keep on getting a error please help the pic of the error is below

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2mzy1x4&s=4

Owner's reply:

It looks like you have a problem with your xml file. From the picture you've posted it seems that the xml file is missing a closing tag. If you need help, please send me the xml file or give me a link to download it and I will export it for you.

Hi there, thanks so much for your tool! I am having a problem with a certain WP-> joomla conversion.

I have had to export the xml using the "Advanced Export" tool because I can't seem to be able to export more than 6 megs. (Shared server problem).

I have 5 different xml files exported, but they all give me many "Ignored error: wp: meta_value" and I have hundreds of articles skipped in each file.

How do I fix this?

Thanks so much

Owner's reply:

Hi,

The ignored error is nothing to worry about. Its just something to indicate the tool is processing the xml files.

As for the ignored posts, it means there are posts that doesn't fall under "Public", "Private" or "Draft" (assuming you've checked all three options).

If you manage to see the congratulatory message at the end of the process, it means all is well.

error message after execute the wordpressconverterv1.52.exe:

aplicacion no se ha podido inicilizar correctamente (0xc0000135)

something like: aplication couldn't start well, or something like that, sorry for my english. why is happening that? i want to check on this method, so i will apreciate the help.

Owner's reply:

Hi Wolf,

I think you the .Net environment is not installed in your PC.

You can download it here.

Hello!

Thank you for your software, but I ran into a bit of a problem using it. I followed the directions exactly as you detail them, but when I tried to import the SQL database using phpMyAdmin, it threw an error. any ideas what this might be?

"There seems to be an error in your SQL query. The MySQL server error output below, if there is any, may also help you in diagnosing the problem

ERROR: Unknown Punctuation String @ 944

MySQL said: Documentation
#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 's Ave Maria', '1', '1', '2008-04-21 19:15:19', '62', '2008-04-21 19:15:19', ' at line 1

Owner's reply:

Hi, did you use the import function in phpMyAdmin? You should try to just open the sql file using a text editor (Notepad) and copy its content. Paste the copied sql statements into phpMyAdmin and run it.

It should work.

Hi Chip,
This is just to let you know that your "Donate" button isn't working.

Owner's reply:

Ooppss. Its fixed now

Hi Lou, I've managed to convert the XML you've given me. The main problem was the char '&'. You need escape that character in the XML. To solve this, simply find and replace all '&' with '& a m p;' (without the single quotes and spaces). There were also other problems with your XML. Its mostly malformed HTML anchor tags. Most of it is either missing a closing double quote or missing a closing bracket. Just go to the line with the error and add those missing elements and you're good to go. I've managed to export 420+ posts. Hope thats the right number

Hi Chip!

First thing first, thank you for your efforts.

I will follow your instructions and see what I can do.

The odd thing is that the xml is WP generated following the instructions

in Part 1, point #2 from the WP guru. They must have some errors in the process.

Again, thank you.

Lou.

Owner's reply:

Yeah sometimes some chars get left off during the process. good luck!

BTW, yes I did apply the fix at post #8, but to no avail.

Thanks for all your help

Owner's reply:

Hi Lou,

Could you send me your xml file to have a look. I can't tell what the problem is until I have a closer look at the xml file.

Chip

Hi, I keep getting this pop up window error while using your converter:

Error: System.Xml.XmlExeption: This is an unexpected token. The expected token is 'SEMICOLON'. Line 1376, position 197.

at System.Xml.XmlScanner.ScanNamedEntity()

at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.ExpandLiteral(XmlAttributeTokenInfo currToken)

at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.SetLiteralValues(XmlAttributeTokenInfo fld)

at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.SetAttributeValues()

at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.ParseElement()

at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.Read()

at WordPressConverter.Form1.process()

Then on main window it states 1 Posts imported and 13 Skipped Posts.

Ignored Error: wp:meta_value

There are way more than 14 total posts, not sure how to get around this.

Thank you in advance for any help.

Thanks Chalupa & Snowman for the great tips!

Charles: I'm glad this tool helped you out.

I had absolutely no clue what I was doing when I decided to try this, and your user guide worked like a dream. Didn't have any problems, and all my wp articles showed up exactly where they should. Thank you so much!

Trouble with paragraph spacing can be solved with the WP plugin PS Disable Auto Formatting. Install and use it on all posts (batch) before exporting to XML. IN this way blank spaces is replaced by

that Joomla understands.

Hey Stef -

I had that same problem. You need to click the name of your database, not your joomla content table. After you select your table, click the SQL tab. This is where you'll do the insert.

I was never able to get it to work by selecting the file to import, but if I opened the .sql file and copied/pasted it into the text box, it worked for me.

I am having a similar problem.

I was able to do the conversion, but I can't seem to import it. I am not sure if it is in the proper format since I did an export from the jos_content in Joomla and compared it to my sql file. The error I am getting is

SQL query:

INSERT INTO `jos_content` ( `id` , `title` , `alias` , `introtext` , `sectionid` , `catid` , `created` , `created_by` , `publish_up` , `attribs` , `metadata` )
VALUES (

'', 'Community', 'Community', 'Staff and Directors Communities Partners', '23', '80', '2009-08-05 14:56:54', '68', '2009-08-05 14:56:54', 'show_title= link_titles= show_intro= show_section= link_section= show_category= link_category= show_vote= show_author= show_create_date= show_modify_date= show_pdf_icon= show_print_icon= show_email_icon= language= keyref= readmore =', 'robots= author='

);

MySQL said:

#1046 - No database selected

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

(I also had the channel issue and it was fine when I changed it to channel xmlns:excerpt="http://wordpress.org/excerpt/1.0" as suggested. Seems to be a WP issue, but thanks for clearing up)

I was able to get your converter working on my laptop. I was able to convert my file just fine, but when I try to import the sql file into my database, I received this error:

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ':'' + addy37853 + ''\''>'' )' at line 1

Any idea what this means? There is no ":" in the line 1.

Owner's reply:

Hi, I'm glad you got it to work. Its hard to tell what the problem is. Maybe you could paste the first 10 lines so I can get a better idea of whats the problem.

I downloaded the converter and tried to run it but keep getting the error

This application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.

Any ideas on what might be wrong?

hi there. what a nice converter that you have and it's a great help.

i don't why, but i got this error message when i tried to upload mine:

SQL query:

INSERT INTO `jos_content` ( `id` , `title` , `alias` , `introtext` , `sectionid` , `catid` , `created` , `created_by` , `publish_up` , `attribs` , `metadata` )
VALUES (

'', 'banner-small.jpg', 'banner-smalljpg', 'http://intisonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/banner-small.jpg', '0', '0', '2008-10-14 17:19:33', '62', '2008-10-14 17:19:33', 'show_title= link_titles= show_intro= show_section= link_section= show_category= link_category= show_vote= show_author= show_create_date= show_modify_date= show_pdf_icon= show_print_icon= show_email_icon= language= keyref= readmore =', 'robots= author='

);

worked great on bringing over my data, but formatting was bad. Lots of run-on paragraphs. No carriage returns entered?

my conversion was - Wordpress 2.5 to Joomla 1.5.10

Owner's reply:

Hi Mike, I'm glad the converter was of help to you. At the moment the converter will grab all your posts "as is" without modifying any formatting. I think Wordpress does not export line breaks as HTML tags unlike other elements i.e. ul, li, strong etc etc

Sorry, I meant "when" not "where"

Hi, your migration tool really rocks! Where do you think you will have the comments migration complete ?

I didn't figure out how to do it with JoomlaComment, so I installed yvComment in order to wait for your upgrade on your soft.

Thanks,

Gonzalo.

Owner's reply:

Hi Gonzalo,

Thank you for the compliment! Its been such a busy few months for me. I hope to finish it by the end of this month. *keeps fingers crossed*

I just wanted to say thanks!!!!!

This has saved me SO MUCH TIME! My only improvement would be finding a way for the program to create or merge categroies with joomla. That way, you dont have to upload the entire sql into the same category.. still, this is an incredible free program.

Hi, Thanks, the problem is solved. The tool works great, I just love it. The articles have no paragraphs though. Is there a way to solve this?.

Chip: Ana, I don't think there is a solution. The tool does not alter any content. Sometimes its the template that does not recognise some formatting parameters.

I don't see any options in JoomlaComment to import Wordpress XML files, only options to import comments from other components.. Am I missing something?

Hi Ana,
I think you need to install the .Net framework for Windows first. Google ".Net Framework" and you will find the download link from Microsoft's site.
Install it then try running this tool again.

Chip

I downloaded the tool but I get an error if I run the exe file. Is there another site I can download it?.

Hi Lyndsay,
The tool does not modify any of the contents of you post. I havent encountered any formatting problems before.
Maybe other users might have a solution?

hi
I used this and all went perfectly. however, once imported into joomla the articles have no paragraphs...is there a way to fix this? Its rather useless to me if it doesnt keep them.

Thanks!!!!!!!!

Hi Chip, I installed .net but no joy. So I have used my father-in-law's PC and is all fine!. Many thanks, you saved me hours of work. I'll make a donation as soon as I can afford to.

It would be great if it could import images and metadata as well but for now it is bye bye Wordpress for me!

Hi Basilio,

Please refer to comment #8.

I'm using WP 2.6.3 and Joomla 1.5.
Unfortunately I get an error message trying to generate the sql. I get:
Eror: System.Xml.XmlException:"excerpt' es un espacio de nombres sin declarar. Línea 478, posición 2.
en System.Sml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
en System.Sml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, String arg, Int32 lineNo, Int32 linePos)
en System.Sml.XmlTextReaderImpl..LookupNamespace(NodeData node)
en System.Sml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ElementNamespaceLookup()
en System.Sml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElement()
en System.Sml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElementContent()
en System.Sml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read()
en System.Sml.XmlTextReader.Read()
en WordPressConverter.Form1.process()

With the versions of your script WordPressConverter.

Hi Mark,
Unfortunately I have not tested this exe on a Mac running XP. I think you'd need the .Net framework ( > v1.1) to be installed first.

Hi this looks like the perfect solution but I can't get the exe to run at all on my Mac running XP or Vista using Parallels!

too bad - I'm an OSX user - but we're up to 10% and growing

hello,
first I want to thank you for this tools.I have tried a few days to migrate my wordpress posts to joomla but could't manage.Then I tried to upload my post to a new wordpress.com account and again took back up from wordpress.com and managed to migrate to joomla.
If you have different wordpress blog in your server you can have a problem.so that first you should send it to wordpress.com (a new account) and should try whole process again.
I think you will not take amy error.

thanks again.

Hi Michael,
I would recommend that you retain your WP Ids only if you want to import the WP posts into a fresh installation of Joomla, if not you'd have duplicate IDs.

Since you've said that you also tried to import the WP posts without retaining the original IDs but yet get duplicate posts in Joomla, it would mean that in your WP export XML file, there are duplicate entries. Try to go through the XML and remove the duplicate entries manually.

When I retain WP IDs, it seems there are a lot of puplicates so when I import them into Joomla, I get SQL errors that there is duplicate data:

MySQL said: Documentation
#1062 - Duplicate entry '2' for key 1

I'd like to retain WP IDs if possible so I can try to import comments. When I don't retain WP IDs, all of the duplicates do show up in Joomla (usually 4 to 5 instances of each post)

wow this thing work like a charm

THANKS

Hi.

can anyone help me..i keep receiving an error when i try to generate the file.

pspgage.googlepages.com/error2.jpg

Please need help...no idea how to solve it

Thanks.

Illuminato: Yes this tool works with WordPress' Import/Export XML

Hello,
your converter works with xml file of wordpress.com blog?
Thank you.

Thanks you very much for the soft ! Indeed I've searched a soft like that during a very long time because I've to convert one hundert posts from wordpress to joomla.

;-)

PS: (sorry for my bad english --> I'm french )

Simon, ok I will add that new feature. Thanks for the suggestion.

Will upload it soon.

--Updated--
Version 1.51 is ready for download.

sorry - in my last comment it has to be : "in terms of an ID", not "idea"

Hey Chip,

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say in my poor English. Your last sentence is exactly right. Every comment has a field which says which post/article it belongs to - and it does so in terms of an idea.

Example: I have comment x belonging to post y (e.g. ID:342) in wordpress. Now I have imported that very same post with your wonderful tool, but it has a new ID (e.g. ID: 12). When I now try to import the comment from wordpress via JoomlaComments it still has the reference to the post with the ID 342, which is not there anymore.

So my suggestion was, if it would be possible to programm your tool in an order to keep the IDs of the posts (NOT the comments). That way one could use the improt function of JoomlaComments or other comment-import-tools.

Is this any clearer?

Hi Dar,
I assume when u say CR you mean Carriage Return. All formatting of posts are taken "as is" from the WP export XML. There is no change or editing of post's content.

Maybe its your Joomla template's css thats formatting it? You should have a look in your XML and see how the formatting was done. You might get a clearer picture of whats happening then.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

Firstly, thanks for this utility, it saves LOTS of time.

But unfortunately there is one question that someone may be able to help with...

After conversion, the SQL file looks fine, but after importing via myphpadmin's import utility, all CR's are lost, along with all the lists I have in the posts, which are now paragraphs ;-).

I have tested utilities such as dos2unix, played with settings prior to importing, such as UTF/ascii etc but to no avail.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
again

Dar

Simon,
I dare not say. I don't know how the JoomlaComment module handles or differentiates a normal post from a comment in Joomla if all WP posts are imported as articles. I don't think a comment article having the same ID as a normal article would do the trick. You know what I mean?

There must be another field or flag to say that this is a comment and it belongs to "article A".

That's right. You probably can't articles with the same ID's in Joomla. Which wouldn't be a problem for those who import their wordpress-posts in an empty Joomla database, because there are no doubles.

But when importing the wordpress comments the importing module of course needs to know which comment belongs to which posts and only knows the wordpress ID which has been replaced by the new Joomla ID, hasn't it?

So, if there would be a way to maintain the same ID while importing wordpress posts to Joomla those comments could be associated with the corresponding posts.

Or am I wrong with this?

Hi Simon,
I don't understand how it works. The posts that are imported into Joomla from WP would have fresh ID's based on the latest running number in your system.
I don't think you can add 2 'articles' into Joomla with the same ID.

Me again

I found an extension (JoomlaComments) that has an import function, but as far as I understand it, it requires the articles in jos_content to have the same IDs as the posts in wp_posts.

This programm does not carry the IDs, does it? And if not would it be possible to add that? Might be less work compared to adding the whole comment function - I dont know ...

You are right - I only have that many posts. It can't be comments, because I got a lot more than that - could be number of posts that have comments or something else.

I am really looking forward to being able to import comments as well, but thanks a lot for your help so far.

Hi Simon,
Yes I got 448 skipped post as well from your xml. This is because those posts have empty content. It could be comments as well. Only posts that have content will be imported.
Another scenario would be the tool does not recognise the post's status tagged by WP.

Thx a lot, Chip. We are getting there - no error messages any more.

But I still have 448 posts (626 getting through), that are being skipped which is a lot to add manually. Did you experience the same with my file? Thank you so much for helping me out.

Hi Simon,

There is a new version release. Please download version 1.5 and everything will be fine.
I have made some fixes and tested it on your WP export XML. It should work now.

Chip, thx for your quick reply. That would be awesome if you could offer comment support as well. I am really new to Joomla so I haven't decided which comment comment I will use. Any suggestions?

Unfortunately I get an error message trying to generate the sql. I get

Error: System.Xml.XmlException: This is an unexpected token. The expected token is 'SEMICOLON'. Line 2284, position 67,
at System Xml.XmlScanner.ScanNameEntity()
at System Xml.XmlTextReader.ParseBeginTextExpandCahrEntities()
at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.Read()
at WordPressConverter.Form1.process()

When I delete that post from the xml-file the programm converts a few more posts, but then I get the same or other error messages. I have put the file here: www.vries-land.de/export.xml and it would be great if you could take a look what went wrong.

Thx a lot, Simon

Hi Simon,
Currently this tool will only export posts because comments in Joomla are handled differently according to which comment component you are using. That means there is no one-size-fits-all solution to exporting comments.

But all is not lost, it can be done. Just need to customize this tool.

Hi Chip,

will this guide also export and import comments or just the posts? If not, is there a way to do it?

Thx a lot, Simon

Hi Ronald,
What kind of documentation are you refering to? A manual? or technical documentation?

I also would like to see more documentation over how it works.

Greetings, Ronald

ah ok..

thanks alot chip! I will try exporting xml from my wordpress..
thanks again, this tool is wonderful.

Hi Thai,
It looks like your xml file is a mySQL dump and not a WordPress export XML. This tool will only work with the XML file exported from WordPress.
Read here: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2006/06/12/xml-import-export/

Hi Chip,
Thank you for the quick reply, i've uploaded my xml file on one of my client's website. the url is www.hardong.org/downloads

Thanks once again for helping.
Thai

Hi thai,
Thats weird. If its possible could you give me a URL for me to download the XML file?
I need to have a look inside to let you know what the problem is.

hi chip,
the tool isn't working for me. followed the instructions carefully but still nothing works. when i click on generate, it gives me a message saying "Conversion Completed" and it also creates the exported "joomla_import.sql" file but when i open the file its empty. (the size of the file shows 0 bytes in windows which means there is nothing there)
Posts Imported shows "0" and skipped posts also shows "0"

I'm moving a huge site and this tool came to me like a lifesaver..

Please help!!

thai

Thanks Chip.
This is absolutely excellent. What a great thing you have shared here. Much love and thanks to you my friend. You've saved me a LOT of work by making this available.
I too had the issue with the excerpt tag not being defined correctly. You tip in comment 8 sorted that out too. I was very happy!

My next step is to see if I can find a way to integrate WP2.6.x into Joomla 1.5. Because as far as I can tell, WP is superior to Joomla when it comes to blogging... but I also need the other CMS features of Joomla. If you have any pointers please let me know.

All the best...
Jonathan

Hi Derek, the tool only works if you want to migrate from Wordpress to Joomla.

I am trying to use this conversion utility to migrate from Blogger to Joomla, but can't seem to make it work. I noticed that someone was able to make it happen... I have an XML export from Blogger, but this utility does not like it. Any help would be appreciated!

Owner's reply:

Hi Derek, this tool only works if you want to migrate from Wordpress to Joomla.

Hi David,
Glad you got it working on your own

. Some posts are skipped by the tool because Wordpress did not categorize them as either Public, Private or Draft. There are some cases where those unrecognized 'posts' in the XML file are not posts at all but some control information.

It seems that I missed the double quotes at the end of line. Now it works. But it seems that it skips 4 post. I have selected public, private and draft - should I not get all posts then?

The comment did not like the message that i wrote, all text did not come trough. I hope this comment works better. I get an error message that says that the characters that surround all statements like before title is wrong.

I get an error message that says that it doesn't like the e lots of file.

Thanks for any help.

Zeca, thanks for the screenshot! I'm glad this tool was helpful

Hi,
Please look at reply #8. Mighty_falcon had the same problem. In short, change the 'channel' tag (usually around the top part of your XML file) to 'channel xmlns:excerpt="http://wordpress.org/excerpt/1.0"'.

I hope this helps.

Hi,
I tried to import all wordpress posts, but is showing an error like this
System.XML.XMLException:'excerpt' is an undeclared namespace: line 195, position 2

I followed all the steps in user guide but in vain.
Help please

Hello,

Just finish an import of 2342 posts of my blog at http://loronix.blogspot.com. Thanks a million. Check the screen capture. http://instrumentalworld.net/2342.jpg.

I'm now thinking about how to transfer comments to Joomla. Perhaps I need to make it by myself this time. THANKS!

Kind Regards, zeca

Defkalion, Dolphine I'm glad you guys like it

"Chip" Thanks === > Turkish : Te?ekkürler :D

This worked like a charm, simply brilliant.

Thankyou so much for this

Hi Dolphin,
Yes, you can import the .sql file (containing your WP posts) into your Joomla database via myPhpAdmin or any other database admin console that you are using.

Hi ! Thanks

But .sql import ?

Don't mention it. Always willing to share a great utility.

thanks so much! that did the trick!!

thanks again

I think you've missed the double quotes at the end of line 26 or something because I've used your XML and I've converted it just fine.

oh and 1 more thing, remove the '&' symbol at line 5135.

thanks for the update!

now i keep getting:

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: http://heritagehome.ca/wordpress.2008-08-14.xml
Line Number 27, Column 2: HeritageHome.ca
--------^

i checked the tags and they seem okay, they closed properly for the title... any further suggestions?

thanks alot!

mighty_falcon,
I've checked the xml that you've given and it seems wordpress is using a custom namespace (i.e. excerpt) in the backup XML but failed to include the namespace declaration in the XML.

Change the 'channel' tag (line 26) to 'channel xmlns:excerpt="http://wordpress.org/excerpt/1.0"'

I've also noticed that your XML file is incomplete. There are 3 missing closing tags at the bottom of the file.
To solve this, just append the closing tags for 'item','channel' and 'rss' at the end of the XML file, save it and you're good to go. Hope this helps.

Hi Chip,

thanks for the quick reply.

I placed the file up on the web at http://heritagehome.ca/wordpress.2008-08-14.xml and when i tried to access it directly i got the same error as i posted. So it must not be the program but the actual xml generated file from wordpress.

I have alos zipped it up which you can download if you like to inspect it at http://heritagehome.ca/wordpress.2008-08-14.zip

thanks!

Hi mighty_falcon, can you paste a snippet of your XML here? It would give me a better understanding too.

Hi,

I've tried to use the above program but i keep receiving an error when i try to generate the .sql file.

The error i receive is System.XML.XMLexception:"excerpt" is an undeclared namespace: line 56, position 2

at System.xml.xmlnselementTokenInfo.FixNames()....

i check line 56 on my xml file and its simple a tag...

any ideas anyone?

thanks!

I hope you'll love it as much as I do!

This tool may just be a lifesaver! Thank you very much for sharing it.