---
title: "Export plugin"
description: "Export content from TinyMCE, into various formats."
canonical_url: "https://www.tiny.cloud/docs/tinymce/latest/exportpdf/"
md_url: "https://www.tiny.cloud/docs/tinymce/5/export/index.md"
version: "5"
last_updated: "2025-05-12T07:01:17Z"
tokens: 1681
---
Important This page documents TinyMCE 5. For new projects, Tiny recommends using the latest, most up-to-date version. [See TinyMCE 8 documentation](../../latest/exportpdf/).
# Export plugin

> **Important:** The Export plugin is now **deprecated** and will be permanently removed in the upcoming TinyMCE 9.0 release. To ensure continued access to similar functionality, consider using the [Export to PDF](/docs/tinymce/latest/exportpdf/) Premium plugin as an alternative.

> **Note:** This feature is only available for TinyMCE 5.5 and later.

> **Note:** This plugin is only available for [paid TinyMCE subscriptions](/pricing).
The Export plugin adds the ability to export content from the editor to a user’s local machine in various formats. For a list of available exporters and information on what they support, see the [Exporters section](#exporters).

## Interactive example

To export the editor content, either:

- From the *File* menu, click *Export* and select *PDF*.
- Click the Export toolbar button (

![Export icon: A page with an arrow from the center of the page to the right of the page](../_images/icons/export.svg)
) and select *PDF*.
**Example**

```js
tinymce.init({
  selector: 'textarea#export',
  plugins: 'export pagebreak code emoticons image table paste lists advlist checklist link hr charmap directionality',
  toolbar: 'export pagebreak | formatselect fontselect fontsizeselect bold italic underline strikethrough forecolor backcolor subscript superscript | alignleft aligncenter alignright alignjustify indent outdent rtl ltr | bullist numlist checklist | emoticons image table link hr charmap',
  height: 500,
  toolbar_mode: 'sliding',
  content_style: 'body { font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px }'
});
```

## Basic setup

To add the Export plugin to the editor, add `export` to the `plugins` option in the editor configuration.

For example:

```js
tinymce.init({
  selector: 'textarea',  // change this value according to your HTML
  plugins: 'export',
  toolbar: 'export',
  export_image_proxy: 'proxy.php' // Required for rendering remote images
});
```

## Exporters

The Export plugin provides the following exporters:

- [Client-side PDF (`clientpdf`)](#client-side-pdf)

### Client-side PDF (`clientpdf`)

The client-side PDF exporter converts the editor content to a PDF without the need for server-side components. This exporter will resize the content to fit on A4 pages, add page breaks, take a snapshot of the HTML, and embed the snapshot image within the exported PDF.

This exporter has a few limitations or known issues that should be noted:

- The text content in the PDF cannot be selected or copied.
- A single line of content sliced horizontally and distributed across separate pages.
- Due to browser limitations, there is a limit on the number of pages that can be rendered. The number of pages varies between browsers.
- Remote images require an image proxy to render due to browser limitations. For information on proxying remote images, see the [export_image_proxy](#export_image_proxy) option.
- Right-to-left languages that use cursive scripts (such as Arabic) may not render correctly due to an issue with how the image of the HTML content is rendered.
- The [Checklist plugin](../checklist/) icons will not render for Internet Explorer 11 users due to browser limitations.

The following plugins are not supported:

- [BBCode](../bbcode/)
- [Comments](../comments/)
- [Enhanced Media Embed](../introduction-to-mediaembed/)
- [Fullpage](../fullpage/)
- [Legacy Output](../legacyoutput/)
- [Media](../media/)
- [Page Embed](../pageembed/)
- [Table of Contents](../tableofcontents/)

## Configuration Options

The following configuration options affect the behavior of the Export plugin.

### `export_cors_hosts`

The Export plugin cannot work with images from another domains due to security measures imposed by browsers on so called cross-origin HTTP requests. To overcome these constraints, Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) must be explicitly enabled on the specified domain(s) (for more information check [HTTP access control](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Access_control_CORS)).

An array of supported domains for the images (with CORS enabled on them) can be supplied to TinyMCE via the `export_cors_hosts` option.

> **Note:** Each string in the array *must* be in the format of `mydomain.com`. Do not include protocols (`http://, https://`) or any trailing slashes in your domains.

> **Note:** `export_cors_hosts` is **not** required when enabling this plugin via [Tiny Cloud](../editor-and-features/).
**Type:** `String[]`

**Default Value:** `[]`

#### Example: `export_cors_hosts`

```js
tinymce.init({
  selector: 'textarea',  // change this value according to your HTML
  toolbar: 'export',
  plugins: 'image export',
  export_cors_hosts: [ 'mydomain.com', 'otherdomain.com' ]
});
```

### `export_ignore_elements`

This option takes an array of HTML element names and allows specific HTML elements to be excluded from the exported content. This can be used to exclude HTML elements that may cause issues with exported content, such as video or audio elements.

**Type:** `Array`

**Default Value:** `[]`

##### Example: `export_ignore_elements`

```js
tinymce.init({
  selector: 'textarea',  // change this value according to your HTML
  plugins: 'export',
  toolbar: 'export',
  export_ignore_elements: [ 'iframe', 'video', 'audio' ]
});
```

### `export_image_proxy`

This option can be used as a way of getting images across domains using a local server-side proxy. A proxy is basically a script, that will retrieve a remote image and pipe it back to TinyMCE, as if it was a local image. An example of such a proxy (written in PHP) can be found below.

[Paid TinyMCE subscriptions](/pricing) also includes a proxy service written in Java. Check the [Install Server-side Components](../introduction-to-premium-selfhosted-services/) guide for details.

> **Note:** `export_image_proxy` is **not** required when enabling this plugin via [Tiny Cloud](../editor-and-features/).
**Type:** `String`

#### Example: Using `export_image_proxy`

```js
tinymce.init({
  selector: 'textarea',  // change this value according to your HTML
  toolbar: 'export',
  plugins: 'image export',
  export_image_proxy: 'proxy.php'
});
```

#### Example of a PHP script for the image proxy

```php
<?php
// We recommend to extend this script with authentication logic
// so it can be used only by an authorized user
$validMimeTypes = array("image/gif", "image/jpeg", "image/png");

if (!isset($_GET["url"]) || !trim($_GET["url"])) {
    header("HTTP/1.0 500 Url parameter missing or empty.");
    return;
}

$scheme = parse_url($_GET["url"], PHP_URL_SCHEME);
if ($scheme === false || in_array($scheme, array("http", "https")) === false) {
    header("HTTP/1.0 500 Invalid protocol.");
    return;
}

$content = file_get_contents($_GET["url"]);
$info = getimagesizefromstring($content);

if ($info === false || in_array($info["mime"], $validMimeTypes) === false) {
    header("HTTP/1.0 500 Url doesn't seem to be a valid image.");
    return;
}

header('Content-Type:' . $info["mime"]);
echo $content;
?>
```