Error in converting org file to md file: Unknown "nil" back-end: Aborting export

Question

I'm trying to export simple org file to md format using command below:

emacs --batch myLanes.org --eval "(progn (require 'org) (org-export-as 'md))" > myLanes.md

I'm getting the error:

Unknown "nil" back-end: Aborting export

What could be wrong?

Answer 1

[Summarizing the back-and-forth in the comments]

Three problems:

• By default the markdown exporter is not loaded.

• The output of the export process can be a buffer or a file, but it is not the stdout of the Emacs process, so you cannot use output redirection.^[1]

• org-export-as is the generic interface that returns the transcoded output as a string. Higher-level interfaces create the output buffer or file. In this case, org-md-export-to-markdown is the higher-level interface that produces a file.

In summary, the invocation is:

emacs --batch myLanes.org \
      --eval "(progn (require 'org) (require 'ox-md) (org-md-export-to-markdown))"

That produces a file myLanes.md in the same directory as the input file myLanes.org (in this case, the current working directory , but you can use pathnames).

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Footnote:

[1] Well, you can but you have to do it yourself, e.g. with (princ (org-export-as 'md)).