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Exporting/Importing Mind Map to/from Outline
Exporting a Mind Map to Outline
It is often useful to save the Mind Map in the form of outline representing the mere content of your map. Saving a Mind Map in text form lets you develop or modify its content outside ConceptDraw MINDMAP (in text or HTML editing applications), and make use of its structure. Then, you can use the text outline to generate a Mind Map (see the "Importing Text Outline Date" section).
The text data is presented in the Outline format. The topics are listed in lines, and the hierarchy of the topics is represented by indents. And besides, the outline reflects the Text Notes, and may also include links assigned to the topics. These elements are marked by the keywords: ">>Link:" and ">>Note:". See the "Outline Data Format" section for the detailed description.
ConceptDraw MINDMAP lets you save the outline in the following formats:
- As a plain text file (.txt):
In this case, the arrangement of the topics is represented by lines with indents, and the Text Notes and hyperlinks are marked by the keywords: ">>Link:" and ">>Note:".
- In Rich Text Format (.rtf):
In addition to the tabulated list and marked notes and links, the outline preserves the text formatting from the original Mind Map and renders font size, text color and style (bold, italic, etc.).
- As an HTML file (.html):
The hierarchy of topics is presented in the form of a bulleted list, the text formatting is preserved, the Text Notes are marked by a smaller font size, and the hyperlinks remain active.
- As an OPML file (.opml, .xml):
OPML is XML-based format that allows you to exchange the outline-structured information among applications running on different operating systems.
Importing a Mind Map from Text Outline
ConceptDraw MINDMAP offers you such important functionality as visualizing text data. It can read the data from a plain text file and generate a Mind Map automatically from its textual description - according to the hierarchy of the items.
The description of a Mind Map should be formed in a specific way: in the Outline format. So you can create a text outline of your map in a plain text file, listing the topics in lines and using indents to reflect the subordination, or using the numeration. For more details about Outline format, see the "Outline Data Format" section.
At the import of the text data (see the "Importing Text Outline Date" section) the program will visualize automatically the Outline into a draft Mind Map. The draft Mind Map will reflect the hierarchy of topics, the hyperlinks and Text Notes. The map can further be developed, formatted etc.
The textual description can be created as a plain text file (.txt) in a text editor, formed in another application or obtained in ConceptDraw MINDMAP.
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