A little ruby script to convert springpad's (http://springpad.com/) html export file into a series of plain text files, in folders corresponding to their note books! To get your html export, in Springpad go to settings>services and choose create backup, wait a few minutes, and then download the backup. Place this ruby file in your unzipped expor…

springpad_to_txt.rb

require 'rexml/document'
require 'time'
require 'fileutils'

OUTPUT_FOLDER = 'notes'
WORKING_HTML_FILEPATH = 'index.html.working'

def get_foldername(element)
	begin
		return get_contents_element_from_span(element, "actual-name, 'workbooks'").get_text().to_s()
	rescue
		return ""
	end
end

def get_filename(element)
	return element.elements['h2'].get_text().to_s().gsub('/','_')+".txt"
end

def get_filepath(element)
	OUTPUT_FOLDER+"/"+get_foldername(element)+"/"+get_filename(element)
end

def get_contents_element_from_div(element, filter)
	return element.elements["div[contains(@"+filter+")]/span[contains(@class,'content')]"]
end

def get_contents_element_from_span(element, filter)
	return element.elements['div/span[contains(@'+filter+')]'].parent.elements["span[contains(@class,'content')]"]
end

def write_single_element_to_file(element, file)
	element.get_text().to_s().each_line { |string| file.puts string.strip }
end

def write_tree_to_file(element, file)
	element.each_element_with_text() { |child| write_single_element_to_file(child,file) }
end

def write_tags_to_file(element, file)
	begin
		write_tree_to_file(get_contents_element_from_div(element, "class,'meta'"),file)
	rescue
	end
end

def write_note_contents_to_file(element, file)
	begin
		write_single_element_to_file(get_contents_element_from_span(element, "actual-name,'text'"),file)
	rescue
	end
end

def write_richnote_contents_to_file(element, file)
	begin
		write_tree_to_file(get_contents_element_from_span(element, "actual-name,'text'"),file)
	rescue
	end
end

def write_author_to_file(element, file)
	file.puts 'Author: '
	begin
		write_single_element_to_file(get_contents_element_from_span(element, "actual-name,'author'"),file)
	rescue
	end
end

def write_isbn_to_file(element, file)
	file.puts 'ISBN: '
	begin
		write_single_element_to_file(get_contents_element_from_span(element, "actual-name,'isbn'"),file)
	rescue
	end
end

def write_book_description_to_file(element, file)
	begin
		write_single_element_to_file(get_contents_element_from_span(element, "actual-name,'description'"),file)
	rescue
	end
end

def set_file_times(element, filename)
	mtime= element.elements["div[contains(@class,'date')]/span[contains(@class,'content')]/abbr"].attribute('title')
	atime= element.elements["div[contains(@class,'date')]/span[contains(@class,'content')]/abbr[2]"].attribute('title')
	File.utime(Time.parse(atime.to_s()),Time.parse(mtime.to_s()),filename)
end

def create_note_folder(element)
	begin
		Dir::mkdir(OUTPUT_FOLDER+'/'+get_foldername(element))
	rescue
	end
end

def write_note_to_file(element)
	filepath=get_filepath(element)
	File.open(filepath,'w') do |file|
		write_tags_to_file(element, file)
		write_note_contents_to_file(element, file)
		write_richnote_contents_to_file(element, file)
	end
	set_file_times(element, filepath)
end

def write_book_to_file(element)
	filepath=get_filepath(element)
	File.open(filepath,'w') do |file|
		write_author_to_file(element, file)
		write_isbn_to_file(element, file)
		write_book_description_to_file(element, file)
	end
	set_file_times(element, filepath)
end

def create_output_folder()
	begin
		Dir::mkdir(OUTPUT_FOLDER)
	rescue
	end
end

def tidy_html_file(filepath)
	text = File.read(filepath)
	text = text.gsub!('<br />', '')
	text = text.gsub!(' & ', ' &amp; ')
	File.open(filepath, 'w') { |file| file.puts text }
end

def open_html_file(filepath)
	begin
		return REXML::Document.new(File.new(filepath), { :compress_whitespace => :all })
	rescue REXML::ParseException => e
		puts 'Error opening html file, sometimes you might need to edit it manually to fix unclosed tags. See the error for more details:'
		puts e.message
		return false
	else
		return false
	end
end

puts 'making copy of index.html...'
FileUtils.cp('index.html',WORKING_HTML_FILEPATH)

puts 'tidying springpad html file...'
tidy_html_file(WORKING_HTML_FILEPATH)

puts 'opening spingpad html file...'
springpad_doc =  open_html_file(WORKING_HTML_FILEPATH)
if springpad_doc != false
	puts 'creating output folder "notes"...'
	create_output_folder()

	puts 'creating folders for notes...'
	springpad_doc.elements.each("html/body/div/div[contains(@class,'instance')]") { |element| create_note_folder(element)}

	puts 'exporting notes...'
	springpad_doc.elements.each("html/body/div/div[contains(@class,'type:Note')]") { |element| write_note_to_file(element)}

	puts 'exporting books...'
	springpad_doc.elements.each("html/body/div/div[contains(@class,'type:Book')]") { |element| write_book_to_file(element)}
end

puts 'removing temporary files...'
FileUtils.remove_file(WORKING_HTML_FILEPATH)
puts 'done!'