Automating Confluence PDF Exports for Offline Access and Archiving on External Storage Systems

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Dear Atlassian-Community, 

many teams rely on Confluence Cloud as their single source of truth. But what happens when Confluence is down or users need content in other platforms like SharePoint or cloud file systems?

In this post, I’ll share a pattern we use to automatically export selected Confluence Cloud pages as PDFs using Scroll PDF Exporter, and then sync those files to external storage such as Microsoft SharePoint, AWS EFS, Azure Storage, or Google Cloud Filestore. The goal: keep critical documentation available and readable, even when Confluence isn’t.

Core idea: a governed “Master Page”

The solution is driven by a single Master Page in Confluence:

• Only a small group of owners can edit it.
• They maintain links to the pages that should be exported.
• The automation reads this list and takes care of exporting and syncing.

This keeps control with content owners while avoiding ad‑hoc, manual exports.

How the automation works

On a Linux VM, a scheduled job (cron) runs a small toolchain:

1. Confluence REST API
   • Resolve the Master Page.
   • Collect linked/child pages and their IDs.
2. Scroll PDF Exporter REST API
   • Trigger a PDF export job for the selected pages.
   • Store the resulting PDFs locally on the VM.
3. Sync script (Python)
   • Scan the export directory.
   • Push new/updated files to your targets, for example:
     • SharePoint libraries
     • AWS EFS
     • Azure Storage
     • Google Cloud Filestore

You can control the schedule (e.g., hourly/daily) depending on how “fresh” the exported content needs to be.

What problems this solves

1. Offline access during Confluence downtime
   Runbooks, procedures, and escalation guides are available as PDFs in external storage if Confluence is under maintenance or unavailable.
2. Long‑term archiving
   Spaces or specific pages can be exported on a schedule, creating a consistent, auditable PDF archive in external repositories.
3. Multi‑platform availability
   Teams working primarily in Microsoft 365, AWS, or GCP can access key Confluence content in their own ecosystem, without always jumping into Confluence.

Governance and next steps

Because exports are driven by the Master Page and a service account, you can:

• Define exactly which content is allowed to leave Confluence.
• Align schedules and retention with compliance or business needs.

If you’re interested in more details (scripts, configuration patterns, or how to adapt this to your own storage targets), we’re happy to help as catworkx.

Feel free to reach out at: alexander.nilsson@catworkx.com

Greetings, 

Alex

[Darin - Opus Guard]

Really appreciate you sharing this pattern @Alexander Nilsson especially the governed Master Page approach! What you described toward the end, the model of defining exactly what content is allowed to leave Confluence is spot-on for keeping things compliant and predictable while also being able to allow for offline access and archiving.

If you ever want to layer in stronger governance around what gets exported (age of pages, classifications, required reviews, retention rules, etc.), apps like Content Retention Manager for Confluence (Opus Guard) and Better Archiving (Midori) can handle that automatically before anything ever leaves the system. It’s a great complement to solve that last nuance you brought up.

Great post, thanks for sharing it with the community!