How to import a mind map from a document

What Canvasola can import today

There is no Word import in Canvasola, and there is no PDF import either. The File menu offers three import routes and no others: Import Mindmap Outline…, Import Markdown… and Import OPML…. A .docx file or a .pdf will not open in any of them, because the app reads structure, not pages.

That is not a gap so much as a different starting point. A Word document and a PDF both carry layout: fonts, margins, columns and page breaks. A mind map carries hierarchy: what sits under what. The import routes take the hierarchy directly, from a plain-text outline, a Markdown list or an OPML file.

The conversion step is short. Open the document, look at the structure it already has, and copy that structure out as indented text. The Markdown export guide covers the text side of the same idea.

• Three import routes exist: outline, Markdown and OPML
• A .docx or .pdf file will not open in any of them
• Imports read structure, not page layout
• Each import produces a new mind map in the app

Turn a document into an outline

Open the document in whatever program you wrote it in and find the structure inside it. In most cases it is already there: a title, some headings, and bullets under each heading. If your word processor has an outline view, switch to it, because that view shows the document the way the mind map will show it.

Now get that structure out as plain text. Copy the headings and the list items into a plain text editor, keep the order, and make the depth visible with indentation. A line with no indent is the root, a line with two spaces is under it, and a line with four spaces is under that.

Save the result as a .txt file. A plain text editor such as TextEdit, Notepad or VS Code is the right tool for this, because it will not add formatting behind your back, and it shows the spaces and tabs that define the depth.

1. Find the document's own structure. Look for the title, the headings and the list items. Those three things are usually already the map.
2. Copy into a plain text editor. Paste the headings and lists as plain text, one item per line, and indent each level further than the one above it.
3. Save as a .txt file. Keep the file as plain text, because the outline import reads indentation and nothing else.

Import a plain-text outline

Choose File, then Import Mindmap Outline…, and pick the .txt file you just made. Canvasola reads the lines, works out the depth of each one from its indentation, and builds the tree. The first line becomes the root node, and the file lands in the app as a new map with the view fitted.

The importer is forgiving about the details. A bullet character at the start of a line is stripped, so a list you copied straight out of a document works. The indent unit is worked out from the file itself, so tabs and two-space indents both import with the depth you intended.

One ceiling is worth knowing: a map holds up to 2,000 nodes, and an import stops at that number. If your document is longer, the first 2,000 lines come in and the rest are left out, so split a very long document into two maps.

• The first line of the file becomes the root node
• Indentation decides the depth of every line below it
• Leading bullet characters are removed automatically
• A single import can create up to 2,000 nodes

Note: The import puts the new map on the canvas and replaces whatever was open, so save the project you were working on before you choose the file.

Import Markdown instead

If the source already is a Markdown document, skip the outline step and use Import Markdown…. The parser reads headings from one to six hashes as levels and bullet lists as branches, and it nests bullets by their indentation, so a well-formed Markdown file comes in with the structure you wrote. The complete Canvasola guide shows where that option sits in the File menu.

Two routes overlap here, and the difference is what the source looks like. Markdown import understands headings, so a document with # and ## headings imports cleanly, while a file of bare sentences imports empty. The outline import has no such expectation, so it accepts plain sentences as long as they are indented.

OPML is the third route, and it is the one to use when the file came from another mind map tool. The OPML guide explains what that format holds and how the two import routes differ in what they expect from a file.

• Markdown import reads headings and bullet lines
• A file of bare sentences arrives empty through this route
• The outline import accepts any indented text
• OPML is the route for files from other map tools

Fix the structure after import

Treat an imported map as a first draft, because that is what it is. The labels arrive and the hierarchy mostly arrives, but the map has no color yet, no notes, and none of the judgment that turns a list of headings into something worth looking at.

Start with the root. If the document had a title, the root should be that title, and a document with several top-level sections ends up with a root that names the subject rather than the first heading. Then walk the branches and fix the levels: Tab adds a child, Shift+Tab moves a node to its parent, and Enter renames a node.

After the structure is right, let the app do the visual work. Press A to auto-arrange, which clears manual positions and re-runs the layout so no branch sits on top of another. Press C to cycle the node color and F to fit the map in the window. The branching rules guide covers the shape of a good branch.

• The root should name the subject, not the first heading
• Tab and Shift+Tab fix the levels quickly
• Auto-arrange with A clears tangled positions
• Color with C and fit with F finish the look

When retyping is faster

Sometimes importing is the slow road. A two-page summary with thirty bullets can be typed into a map in a few minutes, because you are making decisions as you type: which items are branches, which are leaves, and what each one should say. An import makes those decisions for you, badly, and then asks you to undo them.

The import pays for itself when the document is long, when the structure is already clean, and when you want the whole thing as a map rather than a few selected ideas. A chapter of notes or a research brief with a table of contents is worth the trip through the outline file.

The other case for retyping is context. A document full of sentences has more in it than its outline, and the sentences are where the thinking is. Importing the outline and rewriting the labels in your own words takes a little longer and produces a map that sounds like you.

• Short documents are often faster to type by hand
• Long, well-structured documents are worth importing
• Rewriting labels in your own words improves the map
• Keep the source file either way, it is the real backup

Note: Whatever route you take, the source document is the backup. Canvasola holds a copy of the map, and the map holds the structure, but only the document holds the sentences exactly as they were written.

A checklist you can reuse

• You confirmed the source is a document, not a .docx or .pdf file
• The document's own headings and lists were used as the structure
• The outline was saved as plain text with visible indentation
• The first line of the file names the root of the map
• The file was saved before the import replaced the open project
• The imported levels were checked with Tab and Shift+Tab
• Auto-arrange and fit were run before the map was reviewed

Common mistakes to avoid

• Trying to open a .docx or .pdf. Neither format can be imported, and the import routes will only report that there are no nodes. Copy the structure into a plain text file first.
• Flattening the structure while copying. A copy where every line starts at column zero arrives as one long branch of siblings. Keep the indentation so the depth survives.
• Importing over the project you were working on. The import puts a new map on the canvas. Save the project file first, or the map you were building is gone from the screen.
• Treating the imported map as finished. The labels arrive, the judgment does not. Rename the root, fix the levels, run auto-arrange and color the branches before you show the map.

Frequently asked questions

Can Canvasola import a Word document directly?

No. There is no .docx or .pdf import in Canvasola, and the File menu only offers an outline import, a Markdown import and an OPML import. The practical route is to copy the document's headings and lists into a plain text editor, indent them by level, save that as a .txt file, and import it with Import Mindmap Outline…

What happens to my formatting when I import?

Nothing survives except the labels and the hierarchy, because those are the only things the outline and Markdown formats contain. The imported map is a fresh tree with palette colors assigned as it is built, positions from the automatic layout, and no notes, images or drawings.

How many nodes can one import create?

Up to 2,000 nodes, which is the ceiling for a mind map in Canvasola. An outline file with more lines than that is truncated at 2,000, so a very long document is better split into two maps than imported as one giant file.

Should I import a document or type the map myself?

Import when the document is long and its structure is already clean, because the outline file gives you the whole map quickly. Type it when the document is short or when the sentences carry more than the headings do, since rewriting those labels in your own words is faster than fixing an import.

This guide is part of the export and import collection. For the wider product tour, read the complete Canvasola guide, and keep the keyboard shortcut cheat sheet open while you work.