Importing Blogroll Links into WordPress from an Outlook 2007 OPML Export

If you’d like to import your RSS feeds from Outlook 2007 into your WordPress blogroll, you can use the Tools / Import capability, as outlined in this WordPress support article.  However, when I went to do this, no matter how many times I tried it, it wouldn’t work.

I finally exported my existing blogroll from WordPress and compared the OPML files.  Turns out that you need to do two search and replaces in your Outlook-generated OPML file for the import to work:

1. Replace all type=”RSS” with type=”link”
2. Replace all xmlUrl= with htmlUrl=

So, for instance:

<outline text=”Heather Solomon – MVP, WSS – SharePoint Branding and Design”
type=”rss” xmlUrl=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/HeathersBlog”/>

becomes

<outline text=”Heather Solomon – MVP, WSS – SharePoint Branding and Design”
type=”link” htmlUrl=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/HeathersBlog”/>

p.s. Yes, I know that all of my links are now to the RSS feeds and not the sites themselves.  All the better to subscribe to!