iThoughts can import and export CSV (comma separate variable) format files. MS Excel and Numbers both support CSV (as do many other apps.) This means that you could:
- Dump your map into Excel for further processing (then reimport into iThoughts?)
- Start in Excel then send it into iThoughts for more 'user friendly' presentation.
When exporting to CSV, iThoughts will export almost all of the topic attributes as separate named columns (for example Text, Notes, Shape, Color, Start, Due etc. etc.)
When importing from CSV, iThoughts CAN import the columns above - but as a minimum it only NEEDS the topic text - as you'll see below.
The following screenshots show some CSV in Excel and how they will look when imported into iThoughts.
Notice how the 'staggering' of the text in Excel (across columns) results in the hierarchy in iThoughts.
Notice also the 'colour' column. Whilst this is not mandatory, it is included to demonstrate how additional attributes can be imported. It uses the 'Hex RGB' way of encoding colour.
The 'level' column headings are the only mandatory columns:
- level0
- level1
- level2
- ...
NB: To see what other columns may be supplied for import, export a simple map in CSV and take a look in the file.
NB2: It is also possible to export in semi-colon delimited text.