Import and export

Export and import in general

There is an import/export to Microsoft Excel by drag & drop or copy & paste of complete nodes. Also the other way round is possible. Just copy a selection of cells in Excel and drop it in FreeMind. Doing this with several columns, creates corresponding child nodes. It also works with the spreadsheet part of OpenOffice.
To export to OpenOffice Writer (and presumably Microsoft Word too - select all in the mind map, then go to OpenOffice Writer and "paste". NOTE - for this to work as expected / desired - ALL of the nodes should be to the right side of the main/parent node in the mind map. The outline appears to be generated from left to right (not positive about this...) Re: Word: copy-paste when some items to left of main node, results in duplicated branches, some not under right parents. Not recommended -- User:DAE 21 June 2006
Also tab-indented outlines will be pasted to FreeMind, including their tree structure.
Import and export to Emacs and Wikipedia-outlines
There are more possibilities, e. g. import from KeyNote. I just forgot where that was documented.

I do not know of a possibility to import from KeyNote. --Danielpolansky 13:01, 8 Nov 2005 (PST)

You can "import" trees from keynote with this workaround: -- msel

1. Save your tree structure from keynote to your disk in keynote: Tree | Save Tree to File.

2. Open the created text file and select all content and copy it.

3. Open freemind and create a mindmap where you want to paste the content of the tree. Select a node and paste the content of the clipboard with STRG+V.

HTML- and XML-export is pretty obvious from FreeMinds menu.
You can copy part of a web page in your browser and paste it to FreeMind. FreeMind analyzes the tree structure in the HTML and builds a mind map. The other formatting (bold, font sizes, etc.) is not taken into FreeMind though.
There exist XSL scripts for conversion between FreeMind and ganttproject which can be found here: http://kutsam.at/home/johannes/content/view/15/4/ If you don't want to download the xalan package, you can use the xsl template in the zip archive on this page from within the freemind File->Export using XSLT.
MindManager: Download XSLT transformation sheets from Christoph Rissner. Then you can convert mind maps from FreeMind's XML format to a different XML format, which can then be directly imported to MindManager. Read more here (HTML) or here (PDF).
Easy FreeMind to MindManager: Export the FreeMind map to HTML with no folding from the File menu in FreeMind. Open the HTML in Microsoft Word and save the map as a Word ".doc" file. Open the .doc in MindManager. MindManager supports the direct import of Word files as well as other Microsoft Office documents.
Almost every outliner should be capable of exporting to a tab-indented outline. This can be pasted to FreeMind.

Export to Emacs and Wikipedia outlines

There are two ways how to export FreeMind's mind map to the outline format understood by Emacs outlining mode and Wikipedia. Their descriptions follow.

Use conversion scripts

Our user has created two perl scripts for conversion between FreeMind and Emacs's outline.

mm2outline for Emacs outline (Perl) (This version does not work for wikipedia!)
outline2mm for Emacs outline (Perl)

Patch FreeMind to paste outline to clipboard

Patching the source code is sensible, only if you are a software developer. In FreeMind's source in modes/mindmapmode/!MindMapNodeModel.java replace the lines

 for (int i=0; i < depth; ++i) {
    fileout.write("    "); }
         
 if (this.toString().matches(" *")) {

with

 for (int i=0; i < depth; ++i) {
    fileout.write("*"); }  //changed
         
 fileout.write(" ");   // new
          
 if (this.toString().matches(" *")) {

and if you copy a node in FreeMind you will find an Emacs/Wiki outline in the clipboard!

Export and import from MindManager

Indirect MindManager 4.0 to FreeMind conversion

How I converted all my mindmanager-mindmaps to freemind in one go. This works for me. Perhaps not for you. Mindmanager 4.0: MMScript?-Editor has a problem with: Dim mm As MmImageType?

Download Download XSLT transformations sheets from Christoph Rissner from http://hkrott.iicm.edu/docs/seminar/sem2002_mindmaps.tar.gz and extract. You need some of those files in step 4 an step 8.
Open Mindmap in Mindmanager 2002 (With Mindmanager 4.0 I had a problem with "Dim mm As MmImageType?". You CAN use further the MMScript?-Editor after the 21-days-trial-tim)
Menu->Tools->MMScript?-Editor
MMScript?-Editor: Menu->Open File->exportXML.MMScript? (see step 1)
Menu->Makro->Ausführen (or key "F5")
(x) Export whole map, Choose destination file, (OK)
Copy all xml-Files in a new directory or make of cource a backup of all your mindmaps! Sorry windows, with linux the following conversion is very easy. Perhaps do it with windows with a batch-file or something else.
Save the following bash-script to "mmtofmconvert" and make it executable with "chmod a+x mmtofmconvert":

  #! /bin/sh
  # mmtofm-convert
  # Leerzeichen in Dateinamen in _ umwandeln
  for f in *\ *; do mv "$f" "`echo $f | tr \  _`"; done
  # xml-Dateien in mm umwandeln
  # Pfad zur Datei mm2fm.xslt muss angepasst werden! See step 1
  # xsltproc:  http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/
  for f in *.xml; do xsltproc -o `basename $f .xml`.mm /home/pete/mm2fm.xslt $f; done 
  # ACHTUNG! Entferne alle xml und mmp-Dateien. 
  # Attention! Delete all xml- and mmp-files!
  #rm *.xml *.mmp  
  # Codierung von utf-8 in lokal erwünschte umwandeln. With work for me.
  recode utf-8 *.mm

execute script from step 8 in every directory with the xml-files you want to transform.
the exported mindmaps have exactly the same structure like the original! I am lucky.

Regards, Peter

NOTE: The above version of the XSLT script does not process the MindManager "notes" if they exist for each node. This is my first time working with XSLT, but the following ammendment to "mm2fm.xslt" worked for me (sections below added after line 55 in the template '<xsl:template match="data">'):

   <xsl:if test="boolean(note)">
       <xsl:element name="node">
               <xsl:apply-templates select="note"/>
       </xsl:element>
   </xsl:if>
 </xsl:template>

 <xsl:template match="note">
       <xsl:apply-templates select="color"/>
       <xsl:apply-templates select="text"/>
       <xsl:element name="font">
               <xsl:apply-templates select="font"/>
       </xsl:element>
 </xsl:template>

--Apalmer00 10:27, 26 Jan 2005 (PST)

Direct MindManager X5 to FreeMind conversion

I received a couple of MindManager mindmaps that I had to convert to FreeMind. These mmap files turned out to be zip-files containing an XML file with the mindmap data. So I've written a basic XSLT which directly transforms this XML to the FreeMind format without the need to install MindManager. I suppose a convenient Import from MindManager could thus be provided in FreeMind using this info/xslt. I also suppose that this XSLT could be extended to transform additional specifics like edge-color, edge-width, etc, but I could not immediately figure out where such data is stored in MindManager's XML, as I do not have MindManager.

Q: How does one actually use the XSLT? E.g. I have an mmap, how do I open it in FreeMind?

NB: I changed "concat(#, below to "concat('#', below to make it work. I also used jar xf file.mmap to extract the files.

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
 <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
     xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
     xmlns:ap="http://schemas.mindjet.com/MindManager/Application/2003"
 >
       <xsl:output
         method="xml"
       version="1.0"
       encoding="iso-8859-1"
       omit-xml-declaration="yes"
       indent="yes"
       />     
   <xsl:template match="/">
     <xsl:element name="map">
       <xsl:attribute name="version">0.7.1</xsl:attribute>
       <xsl:apply-templates select="ap:Map/ap:OneTopic/ap:Topic" />
     </xsl:element>
   </xsl:template>
   <xsl:template match="ap:Topic">
     <xsl:element name="node">
       <xsl:attribute name="TEXT">
         <xsl:value-of select="ap:Text/@PlainText" />
       </xsl:attribute>        <xsl:if test="ap:Text/ap:Font/@Color">
         <xsl:attribute name="COLOR">
           <xsl:value-of select="concat('#', substring(ap:Text/ap:Font/@Color, 3, 6))" />
         </xsl:attribute>
       </xsl:if>
       <xsl:variable name="OId" select="@OId" />
       <xsl:variable name="relation" select="/ap:Map/ap:Relationships/ap:Relationship[ap:ConnectionGroup[@Index=0]/ap:Connection/ap:ObjectReference/@OIdRef=$OId]" />
       <xsl:if test="$relation">
         <xsl:variable name="toId" select="$relation/ap:ConnectionGroup[@Index=1]/ap:Connection/ap:ObjectReference/@OIdRef" />
         <xsl:element name="arrowlink">
           <xsl:attribute name="ENDARROW">Default</xsl:attribute>
           <xsl:attribute name="DESTINATION">
             <xsl:value-of select="$relation/ap:ConnectionGroup[@Index=1]/ap:Connection/ap:ObjectReference/@OIdRef" />
           </xsl:attribute>
           <xsl:attribute name="STARTARROW">None</xsl:attribute>
         </xsl:element>
       </xsl:if>
       <xsl:variable name="toId" select="/ap:Map/ap:Relationships/ap:Relationship/ap:ConnectionGroup[@Index=1]/ap:Connection/ap:ObjectReference[@OIdRef=$OId]/@OIdRef" />
       <xsl:if test="$toId">
         <xsl:attribute name="ID">
           <xsl:value-of select="$toId" />
         </xsl:attribute>
       </xsl:if>
       <xsl:apply-templates select="ap:SubTopics"/>
     </xsl:element>
   </xsl:template>
 </xsl:stylesheet>

Here is an online conversion utility (using the above XSLT) that will convert a .mmap file to Freemind format:

   http://www.liberatedcomputing.org/mm2fm

Q: How can I convert a mmap file with non-latin characters, such as Chinese and Japanese characters? Those words and sentenses will became several Question Marks!

NB: Please check your JVM default property "file.encoding".

   String defaultEncodingName = System.getProperty( "file.encoding" );
   System.out.println(defaultEncodingName);

Since "mmap" file's encoding is "UTF8", so that we have to use "UTF8" with "file.encoding" property. I straightly change the startup script to support it.

E.g: In Windows Version, it has a "freemind.bat".

java -Dfile.encoding=UTF8 -cp lib\freemind.jar;...

Mmap format is a jar file

MindManager's file format of .mmap files is a zipped file:

/home/dgriff> jar tvf Requirements.mmap
  1782 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 bin/C96CF30F-3F6E-460B-8D5A-ED5F65E852D4.bin
102572 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 Document.xml
  2265 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 xsd/MindManagerDelta.xsd
 48314 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 xsd/MindManagerApplication.xsd
     0 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 xsd/
  5037 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 xsd/MindManagerCore.xsd
     0 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 bin/
 13615 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 xsd/MindManagerPrimitive.xsd
 13518 Mon Jun 14 15:00:38 BST 2004 Preview.png

Dave Griffiths

---

If that is the case, it should be possible to create XSLT that converts directly between FreeMind's and MindManager's XML. Additionally, one should be also able to get the contents of .mmap by renaming a copy of it to .zip and opening in favorite zip application.

An advantage of this approach should be obvious; you don't need MindManager to covent a MindManager's map to FreeMind's map. Therefore, you do it on any operating system you like.

This all surely does apply only from certain version of MindManager above. That should be clarified.

It is not true for files saved using MindManager 4.0 Standard Edition.

To fix problems with character encoding

Try to change the encoding="UTF-8" to encoding="iso-8859-1" in the xslt sheet posted above.

Export to CSV text

This is an XSLT to output a Freemind mind map as a CSV text file with extra commas to represent the hierarchy. This is useful for importing into Excel to represent the nesting of nodes as a colum view.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 <xsl:output method="text"/>
 <xsl:template match="/">
 <xsl:apply-templates/>
 </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template name="linebreak">
   <xsl:text> 
</xsl:text>
  </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="map">
   <xsl:apply-templates select="child::node"/>
  </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="node">
   <xsl:param name="commaCount">0</xsl:param>
    <xsl:if test="$commaCount > 0">
      <xsl:call-template name="writeCommas">
       <xsl:with-param name="commaCount" select="$commaCount"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:if>
    <xsl:value-of select="@TEXT"/>
     <xsl:call-template name="linebreak"/>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="child::node">
        <xsl:with-param name="commaCount" select="$commaCount + 1"/>
      </xsl:apply-templates>
     </xsl:template>
     <xsl:template name="writeCommas">
      <xsl:param name="commaCount">0</xsl:param>
       <xsl:if test="$commaCount > 0">,<xsl:call-template name="writeCommas">
         <xsl:with-param name="commaCount" select="$commaCount - 1"/>
     </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:if>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Developed by Mike Bell at Simulacra.

If you have issues with accuented characters not being transferred correctly in Excel, you can do the following:

save the exported file as somename.txt (instead of somename.csv)
start Excel
menu point File -> Open...
choose "Files of Type" = Text Files (...*.txt...)
then you get a dialogue where you can choose the "File Origin", which in Western Europe and USA is most probably one of Unicode (UTF-8) or Western European (ISO or Windows, I'd guess). Anyway, change the "origin" (correctly it's called charset) until the accents in the preview window are correctly shown.

Something similar should work under oocalc from OpenOffice.

Alternatively, one could also try to add an "encoding" parameter to the "output" element of the XSLT sheet, like in Zvon's XSLT Reference.

Import from VYM

The following XSLT converts an XML export file from VYM to freemind format (only links, icons and colors are preserved):

<xsl:transform version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:template match="/">
	<xsl:apply-templates select="/vymmap/mapcenter" />
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="/vymmap/mapcenter">
	<map version="0.8.0">
		<node ID="_" TEXT="map imported from VYM">
		<xsl:apply-templates select="branch" />
		</node>
	</map>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="branch">
	<node CREATED="0" MODIFIED="0">
		<xsl:attribute name="TEXT">
			<xsl:value-of select="heading" />
		</xsl:attribute>
		<xsl:attribute name="COLOR">
			<xsl:value-of select="heading/@textColor" />
		</xsl:attribute>
		<xsl:if test="@url != ">
			<xsl:attribute name="LINK">
				<xsl:value-of select="@url" />			
			</xsl:attribute>
		</xsl:if>
		<xsl:attribute name="ID">VYM_<xsl:value-of select="@x1" />_<xsl:value-of select="@y1" /></xsl:attribute>
		<xsl:apply-templates select="standardflag" />		
		<xsl:apply-templates select="branch" />
	</node>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="standardflag">
	<xsl:choose>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'lifebelt'"><icon BUILTIN="flag"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'flash'"><icon BUILTIN="clanbomber"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'heart'"><icon BUILTIN="bookmark"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'thumb-down'"><icon BUILTIN="button_cancel"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'thumb-up'"><icon BUILTIN="button_ok"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'arrow-down'"><icon BUILTIN="full-7"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'arrow-up'"><icon BUILTIN="full-1"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'lamp'"><icon BUILTIN="idea"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'clock'"><icon BUILTIN="bell"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'smiley-sad'"><icon BUILTIN="button_cancel"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'smiley-good'"><icon BUILTIN="ksmiletris"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'stopsign'"><icon BUILTIN="stop"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'cross-red'"><icon BUILTIN="button_cancel"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'hook-green'"><icon BUILTIN="button_ok"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'questionmark'"><icon BUILTIN="help"/></xsl:when>
		<xsl:when test=". = 'exclamationmark'"><icon BUILTIN="messagebox_warning"/></xsl:when>
	</xsl:choose>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:transform>

Mcree 03:12, 14 Nov 2006 (PST)

Import issues from the mantis bug tracker to freemind

There is a script to export issues from mantis to freemind. See http://bugs.mantisbt.org/view.php?id=7214

Perl module for FreeMind and import from Microsoft Project

I've been using a perl module Media:MindMap.pm to import from Microsoft Project into Freemind. Microsoft Project is useful, but cluttered. Large projects are, in my experience, difficult to examine. On the other hand, Microsoft Project supports reading via OLE, and thus can be rendered into Freemind which can be more useful because it is less cluttered, and more flexible. (Downside: this requires an executable copy of Microsoft Project on the host on which it is executed.)

Sample script Media:mpp2mm.pl -- this converts a project plan into Freemind map using the work breakdown structure field. Completed tasks get the check icon, and the notes field is a note on the task.

Alternate approach Media:generateOrgChart.pl -- this was designed for a plan in which field Text7 contained organizational information. The project plan was converted into a Freemind map where the top branching encoded task status (one of: "expired but not complete", "at risk", "due in 30 days", "due in 60 days", "due in 90 days", "weird" [things like start date in the future but some work accomplished], "normal"), then branch by Text7, possibly delimited, then branch by resource, then display the task.

Another approach I've implemented was to index via a concordance -- top layer tier an alphabet, then below that key words, then the tasks that contain those key words. Because the perl module makes it easy to create a new map, put nodes below other nodes, etc, other possibilities will probably suggest themselves.

Import and export

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