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Notes on RemNote Importers
Notes on RemNote Importers

RemNote can import data from a wide variety of other applications – here's what your data will look like when you import it.

Soren Bjornstad avatar
Written by Soren Bjornstad
Updated over a week ago

You can import data from any format listed here to RemNote by choosing Import at the bottom of the left sidebar. Complete instructions on completing the import are provided when you hover over the (i) icon next to each file type. This article supplements those instructions by explaining how RemNote tries to convert data from those applications to work in RemNote, and what might not import the way you expect.

Formats discussed here:

Anki

Flashcard content and review history can be imported into RemNote. Formatting may look less pretty than in Anki, as custom CSS on card templates is not imported.

Also, complex note types with many fields and multiple card templates are unlikely to work well at the moment; RemNote doesn't presently know how to generate cards to match the template descriptions in Anki, so the fields won't necessarily map well to the front/back of the Rem created by Anki import. That said, it’s probably worth a try!

Markdown

The Markdown importer is usually high-fidelity, but because there are so many dialects of Markdown and applications that use Markdown, it won't always work perfectly. If this importer does a particularly bad job on Markdown files generated by a specific commonly-used app, please get in touch with us and let us know – we may be able to easily add a more effective importer specifically for this app.

  • Each .md file you upload will become a RemNote document.

    • You can upload either a single .md file or a zip file containing such files.

    • If you upload a zip file, folders within the zip file will become RemNote folders containing the documents inside them.

    • Each paragraph or list item within a .md file will become a Rem.

  • The Markdown dialect used by this importer is the default dialect of MarkedJS, which is similar but not identical to CommonMark.

  • Images can point to publicly accessible web URLs or to relative paths within the zip file (if you upload a zip file).

Dynalist

The Dynalist importer is high-fidelity. The only major caveat with Dynalist imports is that uploaded images cannot be imported (see below for details).

  • All content, images, links/references, and formatting are imported unchanged, except as noted below.

  • Dynalist tags you use become RemNote tags stored in a RemNote document called Dynalist Tags. Dynalist tags that begin with @, such as @MyTag, will be named like #@MyTag in RemNote.

  • References to dates become links to the associated Daily Doc in RemNote.

  • List items that are crossed out but not formatted as todos in Dynalist become completed todos in RemNote.

  • Strikethrough formatting is converted to the characters ~~ surrounding the struck-through text (RemNote currently does not support striking through arbitrary text).

  • Images that are hotlinked to external sites will be imported and referenced by their hotlinked URLs in RemNote. (This means that while the images will appear in your documents, they aren't guaranteed to be available in the future if the site they're hosted on stops working.) Images that have been uploaded directly into Dynalist cannot be imported at all, as Dynalist unfortunately does not provide any way to retrieve such images.

RemNote

RemNote backups and exports should be imported with perfect fidelity, appearing exactly as they did in the original knowledge base (unless you have different custom CSS in the new knowledge base that affects display). If this ever does not happen for you, please get in touch with us.

  • All documents that were included in the backup or export are imported exactly as they originally were in RemNote.

  • Your RemNote settings are not included in backups and will remain as they are.

Obsidian

Since Obsidian is paragraph-based rather than outline-based, importing into RemNote can sometimes be an awkward fit, depending on exactly how you use Obsidian. RemNote also doesn't currently support some types of content that Obsidian does, such as tables. Aside from these limitations, importing from Obsidian is generally high-fidelity.

  • All content, images, links/references, and formatting are imported unchanged, except as noted below. In general, each paragraph or list item becomes one Rem.

  • RemNote creates flashcards on import if you use RemNote's flashcard syntax in your Obsidian vault (arrows for directions and double-braces for cloze deletions).

  • Footnotes are placed at the end of the document in a section called Footnotes, and a pin Rem Reference to the appropriate Rem is inserted wherever the footnote is referenced.

  • Strikethrough formatting will be converted to the characters ~~ surrounding the struck-through text.

  • Horizontal rules will become empty Rems.

  • The title attribute of links is lost.

  • The size attributes of images are lost.

  • The content of tables will be imported into RemNote, but they won't be displayed as tables because RemNote does not yet support tables. (Table support is planned for the near future.)

  • YAML front matter is discarded.

Workflowy

Workflowy import is generally high-fidelity. Unfortunately, Workflowy doesn't export images or mirrors; RemNote is therefore unable to import content using these features correctly, since it lacks the relevant information.

  • All content, links/references, and formatting are imported unchanged, except as noted below.

  • Workflowy tags you use become RemNote tags stored in a RemNote document called Workflowy Tags. Workflowy tags that begin with @, such as @MyTag, will be named like #@MyTag in RemNote.

  • References to dates become links to the associated Daily Doc in RemNote.

  • Items that have been marked completed in Workflowy become completed todos in RemNote. (Items that haven't been completed become ordinary Rem, not unfinished todos.)

  • Any notes on a Rem become its first child Rem.

  • Highlights are collapsed to the six colors available in RemNote, picking the most similar available color if necessary.

  • Text colors are ignored since RemNote does not currently support colored text. All imported text will be black.

  • Images are ignored. This is a limitation on Workflowy's end -- it simply doesn't include images or any references to them in the file it exports.

  • Mirrors become duplicate Rems. This is a limitation on Workflowy's end -- it doesn't export any information indicating that this used to be a mirror in Workflowy, so RemNote can't reconnect them.

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