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Export

Stratum can export your vault to portable formats.

Exporting

From the Interface

The export actions are available in Settings → Vault → Export (desktop) and under the Vault section on mobile. The sidebar Export button still exports HTML to a temp folder (/tmp/stratum-export), and the CLI writes export.html into the vault directory.

The Export section provides four actions, each with an output-path field, a Browse button to choose the destination, and an Open folder button on success:

  • Export HTML — static HTML snapshot (optionally into a chosen directory)
  • Export JSON — structured JSON data (optionally into a chosen directory)
  • Export page as PDF — the currently open page (requires a page to be open)
  • Export vault as ZIP — portable vault archive

From the CLI

# Export to HTML (default)
stratum export html

# Export to JSON
stratum export json

PDF and ZIP export are available from the app UI only — not from the CLI.

HTML Export

The HTML export generates a single-page document with all notes:

  • Page titles as headings
  • Full content preserved
  • Basic styling for readability
  • All notes in one document

Output: export.html in your vault directory.

JSON Export

The JSON export creates structured data suitable for programmatic processing:

[
  {
    "path": "notes/my-page.md",
    "title": "My Page",
    "tags": ["project", "documentation"],
    "body": "Content...",
    "links": ["other-page", "reference"]
  }
]

Output: export.json in your vault directory.

Each entry contains:

Field Description
path Vault-relative file path
title Page title from frontmatter
tags Array of frontmatter tags
body Page content (without frontmatter)
links Array of wiki-link targets

PDF Export

Exports the currently open page to a single PDF file named export-<slug>.pdf in the vault directory.

  • Renderer: Stratum shells out to a headless Chromium binary to print the page. This is a runtime dependency, not a bundled library.
  • Math: LaTeX is pre-rendered to MathML ($…$ and $$…$$ both supported) so equations appear as real math, not raw markup.
  • Mermaid: ```mermaid fenced blocks are rendered by the embedded Mermaid runtime.
  • Images: ![[assets/…]] embeds are resolved against the vault assets/ directory and included in the output.

Chromium runtime dependency

A Chromium-compatible binary must be installed and discoverable on the system. Stratum looks for it, in order:

  1. The STRATUM_CHROMIUM environment variable (explicit path)
  2. chromium, chromium-browser, google-chrome, or google-chrome-stable on your PATH
  3. /usr/bin/chromium, /usr/bin/google-chrome, /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable
  4. A Chromium in Playwright's cache (~/.cache/ms-playwright/)

If none is found the export reports an error telling you to install Chromium or set STRATUM_CHROMIUM.

ZIP Export

Exports the whole vault to a portable export.zip archive for backup or transfer.

  • Includes all user content: plain .md files, assets/, templates/, and a manifest.json describing the archive.
  • Excludes the .pkm/ and .git/ directories (rebuildable cache and version history) and any prior export.html/export.json/export.zip/ export.pdf artifacts at the vault root.
  • The archive is re-importable via the importers.

The manifest.json lists the format, version, export timestamp, page count, and file count:

{
  "format": "stratum-vault-zip",
  "version": "1",
  "exported_at": "2026-10-14T00:00:00Z",
  "page_count": 12,
  "file_count": 34
}

Use Cases

  • JSON export — import into other tools, build custom views, analyze your knowledge graph
  • HTML export — share a readable snapshot of your vault with others
  • PDF export — share a single note as a fixed-format document
  • ZIP export — portable backup or vault transfer
  • Plain .md files — the files themselves are the most portable format. Just copy them.