Importing Documents

Overview

If you have existing work in another application — a manuscript in Microsoft Word, notes in a text file, or a draft in Markdown — you can import it directly into Genesis Writer. The import system converts your file into the editor's rich text format, preserving as much formatting as the source format supports.

Imported content lands in a new draft node, ready for editing. From there you can use all of Genesis Writer's tools: AI generation, analysis, comments, styles, and everything else — as if you'd written it directly in the editor.

Supported Formats

Genesis Writer supports four import formats, each with different capabilities:

• DOCX (.docx, .doc) — Microsoft Word format with full formatting support.
• Markdown (.md, .markdown) — GitHub-Flavored Markdown with tables, strikethrough, and more.
• Plain Text (.txt) — unformatted text with paragraph detection.
• PDF (.pdf) — text extraction only, no formatting preserved.

How to Import a File

1. Open your project in the writer.
2. Click the Import button in the left panel toolbar, or use the draft node's context menu and select Import Document.
3. A file picker dialog opens. Select your file (.docx, .md, .txt, or .pdf).
4. Genesis Writer converts the file and loads the content into a new draft node. The node title is set to the filename (without the extension).
5. Review the imported content and make any adjustments needed.

DOCX Import

DOCX is the recommended format for importing existing manuscripts. Genesis Writer uses a document conversion engine to convert Word documents, which preserves:

• Headings — Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 styles map to h1, h2, and h3 elements.
• Bold and italic — inline formatting is preserved.
• Underline and strikethrough — both are carried over.
• Paragraphs and spacing — paragraph breaks are maintained.

Some Word-specific features are not preserved during import:

• Headers and footers
• Page numbers and page breaks
• Tables of contents
• Track changes and comments
• Complex table formatting
• Embedded images (text content only)
• Custom fonts and font sizes

Markdown Import

Markdown import supports GitHub-Flavored Markdown (GFM) through a Markdown parser. This includes:

• Headings — # through ### for three heading levels.
• Bold and italic — **bold**, *italic*, and ***both***.
• Strikethrough — ~~deleted text~~.
• Lists — ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists.
• Blockquotes — > prefixed text for quotations.
• Code blocks — fenced code blocks with ``` syntax.
• Tables — GFM pipe-delimited tables.
• Links — inline [text](url) links.
• Horizontal rules — --- or *** as section breaks.

Markdown is an excellent choice if you draft in plain-text editors like VS Code, iA Writer, Obsidian, or any other Markdown-capable tool. The conversion is fast, predictable, and preserves structure well.

Plain Text Import

Plain text files (.txt) have no formatting, so the import focuses on preserving your paragraph structure:

• Double line breaks (blank lines) are treated as paragraph separators.
• Single line breaks within a paragraph are preserved as line breaks inside the same paragraph.
• Special characters (&, <, >) are properly escaped for the editor.

This format works well for quick imports when you just need to get text into the editor. No formatting is expected, so there are no surprises.

PDF Import

PDF import extracts text only. Due to the nature of the PDF format, formatting, layout, columns, and images are not preserved. The imported content will be plain text organized into paragraphs.

If your PDF contains scanned images of text (rather than selectable text), the import won't extract any content. You'll need to run OCR (optical character recognition) on the file first using an external tool.

Format Comparison

Here's a side-by-side comparison of what each format preserves:

Tips for Best Results

• Use DOCX for manuscripts. If you're importing a full manuscript or a lengthy document with formatting, DOCX is your best bet. It preserves the most structure and maps cleanly to the editor's formatting model.
• Use Markdown for structured drafts. If you write in a Markdown editor, import directly. The GFM support handles tables, strikethrough, and other extended syntax.
• Use TXT when formatting doesn't matter. For raw text you plan to format in the editor, TXT is the simplest and most predictable format.
• Avoid importing PDFs when possible. Convert to DOCX or TXT first for much better results. Most word processors and online tools can convert PDFs to DOCX.
• Review headings after import. Make sure your chapter and section headings imported as actual headings (not just bold text). The editor's heading styles affect both formatting and export output.
• Check paragraph breaks. Some word processors use soft returns (Shift+Enter) instead of paragraph breaks. These may import differently than expected. Scan through and adjust any merged paragraphs.
• Import into a clean draft node. Imported content replaces the content of the target draft node. If you want to keep existing content, create a new draft node first and import into that.