Export and Import Plot & Story Notes

Comments: 20

• 01 Dec, '17
  Johannes Rexx

  Everything Dabble stores should be able to be backed up by the user AND restored by the user from that backup. Likewise if the user exports a manuscript they should be able to import it again too. This should apply not only to plot and story notes but to every piece of information Dabble manages.

• 03 Dec, '17
  Nina Light

  As Johannes Rexx states above. All our data (projects, manuscripts, notes, research, profiles) should be exportable/importable, and easily convertible to a conventional format in case we want to work on it outside, or no longer wish to be with Dabble.

• 05 May, '18
  Miri

  It's important to me to have copies on my own hard drive / in my own storage. I don't want anything bad to happen to Dabble, and I'd like it to be something I can use for a long while (especially if development is continuous). But only being able to back up my manuscript and not the other files *in a location of my choice* makes me nervous. I also think it's useful for people who like to print out stuff and read/plot it that way. It'd be easier to rearrange huge plot grids, for one.

• 06 Sep, '18
  Michelle

  I agree, I would like to be able to import my plot notes and story notes too.

• 09 Oct, '18
  GK Sudo

  You can export your notes if you just use parts/chapters/scenes inside your notes section instead of actual notes. It's kinda hacky but it gets the job done. This doesn't work with the Plot Grid though which is my favorite feature of Dabble, but for anyone who doesn't use it, this is already possible

• 06 Dec, '18
  Cedar

  I think this is especially important - If I'm going to rely on dabble to create my stories, then I need to know that 20 years or 30 years from now my notes will still be available to me. I know of an author who took more than 20 years to write her follow up novel (CJ Cherryh), and she said the only way it was possible was that she had managed to find her plotting notebook from when she wrote the original book (Cyteen).
  It just reminds me how important it is to have access to all of my notes.

• 09 Dec, '18
  Steffi

  When I am outlining and everything is still rough, I often decide to play around with my plot points in the grid. I would feel way better if I could back everything up somewhere (my own drive preferably) and then rearrange everything, delete some, change others. If I don't like it or I outlined myself into a corner, I would like to be able to just change everything back to the way it was before.

• 22 Jan, '19
  Mindy

  I'd like to be able to export story notes in case I want to set them up on note cards in scrivener, or send them to a friend.

• 02 Apr, '19
  Johannes Rexx

  As it stands today, Dabble is well-suited for starting a manuscript, using the grids to help organize the plot arcs and such, and ultimately to export the manuscript to DOCX.
  
  Now there will be plenty of editing of the manuscript after that first draft is complete.
  
  The user may wish to import the manuscript back into Dabble and use its plot grids features to fix some serious problems. But there no way to do it, besides a very painful copy and past procedure. Please consider an import feature.

• 14 Jun, '19
  J George

  I am resisting switching to Dabble almost entirely because of the lack of story-note export and back-up. Every writer knows that a HUGE amount of the value and work of a book goes into the notes, not just for the current book but for future books too. If I can't export (and save and print) my notes, I can't use Dabble. It's a simple as that :(

• 13 Sep, '19
  D.S.

  +Johannes Rexx

• 14 Sep, '19
  Justin Dow

  One of my concerns for starting a big project is that I can't export my actual notes. I can export the manuscript, but any world building, characters, etc., I would have to manually copy and past. Should something happen to Dabble -- for example, if it were hacked or if the server that the service runs on failed -- I would lose everything. I don't want a situation like MySpace's music -- thousands of songs and artists just...gone...

• 24 Dec, '19
  Sarina

  Yes! I badly BADLY want to export my story grid! Pretty please?

• 20 Jan, '20
  Nicole Mercado

  I am SUPER desperate for this. I love printing out physical plots and handwriting notes and then re-compiling on the computer. The process helps a lot. I also want the ability to share my plot grids with my co-writers and artists (I do comics) that don't have access to the app.

• 06 Apr, '20
  Felix

  This was the one feature that almost made me walk away from Dabble. Love this software - very excited about the Mobile app - but not being able to print out my plot and story notes is a really tough compromise. Sometimes you just want to look at your thinking in a different, offline kind of way. I honestly think a lot of people will have not adopted this as a result. Please escalate this! (But well done on all the good work - I've subscribed!)

• 09 Jul, '20
  Sylvia

  Yes, please. I have just used copy and paste to export all my character profiles. Export to a text document (Word) also to a new project in Dabble. I like to keep versions of my story and notes in Word as I go along - just in case. Thank you.

• 27 Jul, '20
  Marc

  [ignore (moved to right post)]

• 17 Oct, '20
  Alicia

  Being able to have a backup of story notes would be a great feature. I will not be putting a lot of effort into adding Notes until this feature is added because I want to be able to have backups in Word format. I didn't realize when I subscribed that this feature was not available.

• 02 Dec, '20
  Katie

  I can't believe exporting notes still isn't a thing. Yes to what everyone else said about backing up EVERYTHING. Yes, you can create scenes with your notes, but Dabble takes a lot of our money to make us come up with workarounds like that.

• 21 Mar
  Ed Hunter

  Wish they had this. I've downloaded my manuscript and will just copy and paste the notes I think I really need into my pre existing outline on Word I wrote before getting started. Dabble's OK I'm just a Word guy at heart.