# Import

Storyspace provides many options for importing text from various sources.

### Copy and Paste

To move moderate amounts of text from another application to Storyspace, it may be easiest to copy and paste the text. This approach has the added benefit of giving you a chance to review your notes: arrange them, adjust their appearance, consolidate related notes, and prune notes that are out-of-date or irrelevant.

### Drag Data Into Views

Drag and drop can be the quickest way to add an entire text file to your Storyspace document.

You can drag and drop:

- text: drag a text selection into Storyspace and—
  - drop it into a text window to insert the dragged text at that point in the text
  - drop it into a view window to create a new note.
- a text file: drag a text file from the Finder. Drop it into a view window to create a new note containing the dragged text.
- Finder clipping files
  - drop into a text window to insert the text or image clipping at that point in the text (see notes on temporary suspension of the image feature)
  - drop into a view window to create a new note containing the text or image (see notes on temporary suspension of the image feature)
- Bookmarks from web browsers, Bookends, or Yojimbo create Storyspace notes; the URL of the note reflects the URL of the bookmark
- News items and subscriptions from news readers such as NetNewsWire
- OPML files
- tab-indented outlines
- vCards, dropped into Storyspace from the Address Book or other vCard-enabled programs

### Spreadsheets and Comma-Separated Value Files

Selecting a table in a spreadsheet and pasting it into Storyspace will create a useful set of notes.

- The first row is treated as a set of headings, which map to attributes. New user attributes will be created for attributes that do not already exist.
- A new container will be created for the table's rows.
- Each row of the table becomes a note. The table's fields become key attributes, and these attributes are populated from the table

Note that Storyspace is rather conservative in judging whether or not pasted text is actually a table. In particular, missing values in the rightmost column can lead Storyspace to conclude that your data is not, in fact, formatted as a table. Filling in the empty cells will help Storyspace import the information as you intend.

### Explode

The Explode command divides a long text note into several smaller notes, splitting the text at locations you have chosen.

To explode a note:

- Select the note you wish to explode.
- Choose Explode... from the Note menu
- Decide whether to end each note after a certain number of characters or after a delimiter such as a period, then click the radio button next to your choice
- Change the number of characters or the delimiter if necessary. To remove the delimiter from the new exploded notes, check the Delete delimiter box.
- Click Explode.

The new notes will appear as children of the original note, in a new container called Exploded Text.

Delimiters you can use to separate the source content include:

- \r (new exploded notes will begin with each Return)
- \n (new exploded notes will begin with each new line)
- \t (new exploded notes will begin with each tab)
- , (new exploded notes will begin with each comma - useful for CSV data)
- any custom string, e.g. #### or XYXYXY.

Explode can also optionally delete the delimiter character(s), making it easier to use custom string that would look odd if left in the output.

It is also possible to control what part of the exploded text is used as a new note's title. Options are:

- first sentence
- first two sentences
- first paragraph