Importing to, and exporting from Topicscape

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(Go to:Topicscape Pro User Guide - contents list)

One design principle of Topicscape has been to provide a wide range of import and export possibilities and already many routes are implemented. You can see these here:

ImportExportPaths2.jpg

A "round trip" export/import is one where, for example, you start with a FreeMind mindmap, you import it to Topicscape, work on it, and then export it back to FreeMind. This works the other way: You can start in Topicscape, go to FreeMind, work on it there, and then import back to Topicscape. (Only works with FreeMind 0.9.0 v.8 Beta and later.)

Now Topicscape allows multiple parents and loose associations for topics, and mind mapping software like FreeMind does not. Nor does the Windows file system. So you might wonder how a Topicscape using these capabilities can be exported and then re-imported without losing information. This is done with user-defined attributes in FreeMind, and shortcuts and a manifest file for folders and files.

As the diagram shows, you can work with whole Topicscapes, or just topic groups -- a topic and all its descendants. When working with whole Topicscapes, everything is exported -- all types of associations. When working with topic groups on the other hand, loose associations and multiple parents outside the group are not included.

For information on importing and exporting various types of text files, please refer to the major articles on this, Importing into Topicscape and Exporting from Topicscape.


Next: Deleting topics and occurrences

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