Guides
How-tos and explainers for making mind maps and moving them between apps and formats.
- Convert Markdown to a mind map
Turn a Markdown outline into a mind map: how headings and lists become topics, what to write, and how to turn the map back into Markdown.
- How to make a mind map, step by step
Six steps from a blank page to a finished mind map: pick a central topic, add main branches, split them into details, then tidy and share it.
- How to open a .xmind file without XMind
Three ways to open a .xmind file when XMind is not installed, in your browser or on iPhone and iPad, and how to turn it into PNG or Markdown.
- Mind map vs outline: which should you use?
A mind map and an outline hold the same tree of ideas. Here is when each one works better, and how to move between them without retyping.
- Mind mapping for studying: how to do it well
How to use mind maps to study: build one from a chapter, test yourself from it, and avoid the habits that turn a map into a pretty copy of the book.
- OPML for mind maps: what it is and how to use it
What an OPML file is, which apps save and open one, and how to move an outline into a mind map and back without retyping it.
Take your maps to iPhone and iPad
MindmapPal for iPhone and iPad opens .xmind, OPML and Markdown files, works offline, and keeps every map as a file you own.
Coming soon to the App Store