I'm experimenting with BrainStorm, and find it quite pleasurable to work with. However, here we go again: how do I get the stuff from BrainStorm to Word? It indents the items with tab-marks, can I somehow make Word interpret these tabmarks as levels in an outline?

It actually works by going through the html (without java-thing), ie exporting to HTML, and then importing the html-file in Word. In word, then, I get the Heading x styles. It seems to start at level 3, but that is easy to find and replace.

Hopefully, by time, all outliners and the like will be able to speak OPML.

I might get to like BrainStorm, indeed. It's nice that it constraints the view to the item you work on right now. And the keyboard shortcuts (even there are loads of them, according to the help file) seem quite intuitive to use.

I didn't quite get the wisdom of Ctrl-T. Could somebody explain to me, what the idea behind that functionality is?

Regards,
Peter.

I didn't quite get the wisdom of Ctrl-T. Could somebody explain to me, what the idea behind that functionality is?

This is just another way of moving items quickly from one location in a model to another. They call it mark and throw. You mark the place in the model you would like to move items to (click between the icon and the text, you'll get a little box to appear), then you throw items to that location using Ctrl-T. I don't often use this mode of transfer except for when I want to move several items to one particular spot.

how do I get the stuff from BrainStorm to Word?

Brainstorm comes with a template for word that will interpret your indented model. I have never used this so I can't fill you in on how to do it, but here is what the help file says about it:

"We also put a Word template, called bsw.dot, into your BrainStorm folder in Program Files. If you know your way around Word, you can use this to import a BrainStorm model. The template contains nine header styles and a couple of others. When you press Shift+Ctrl+O, the embedded macro converts BrainStorm's output text into a structured Word document.

"Normally, if you have elected to 'show hidden files' in Explorer, you will put the template in this directory:

"My computer/ [Local disk - usually c:]/ Documents and settings/ [User name]/ Application Data/ Templates

"(We regret to say that you're on your own if you want to use this method for working with Word. The bsw.dot file is unsigned, which can make for interesting installation problems in Word 2003. Other versions of word are happy if you pop the bsw.dot file into your regular template directory then select it with File/New. You may have to lower your security settings then reload Word in order to install the bsw.dot file.)

"You'll possibly be relieved to hear that Word, and many other programs, will also make sense of files published using the simple outline option of the Publish HTML command."

Hope that is clear.

Steve Z.

CTRL+T first. (F8 does the same thing)


The idea is you mark an item (Ctrl+M) which gives it a green rectangular mark. You can then browse through your outline and hitting Ctrl+T will move the entry you are in to immediatly above the marked entry.

Ctrl+Shift+T will copy the entry to immediatly above the marked entry.

Until you remove the mark, you can move all through your model throwing entries to above the marked entry.

There is a Word template included with Brainstorm that has formatting and a macro to turn the Brainstorm model into a Word Outline. Its in your Brainstorm program directory

There are however some problems with this as recent discussions in the Brainstorm forum have identified. There is a bit in the help file, which you should read first, but it needs revised in light of what is written below

Below is the last word on getting it to work from the Developer, copied form the Brainstorm users forum, which you should join:

---------------------------------------------------------------

Update and, hopefully, a full examination of the Word stuff.

First of all, I am using the version of Word that I got with Office XP
Home - Word 2002.

I think I now understand more clearly what's going on here:

BSW.dot contains two things: a format for displaying and editing stuff
in Word and a macro for converting tabbed indented material into an
outline.

You need your security level set to 'Low' to accept the macro part of
the template. You can change it back once you've taken it on board.

If you put the Macro into Normal.dot then it's available at all times,
regardless of whether the document is opened with BSW.dot.

Here's the sequence I went through:

Clean up:

I removed my bsw.dot template from Word's Normal.dot and also from
the templates folder in ... /[user name] /Application data /Microsoft
/Templates. For some reason, I could not erase it from the 'New from
Template' area of Word.


Add BSW.dot:

So, starting clean, I put the latest copy of BSW.dot into the
templates area. I invoked it from the 'New from Template'/General
Templates area of Word. (Although I later discovered that the bsw.dot
that was already there started working again as well.)

This served to provide a format for the new document, but the Macro
was not accessible at this point. But I could, as Graham pointed out,
see it in the Visual Basic area and I could run it from there.


Add Outline Macro to Normal.dot:

I opened Tools/Macro/Macros.../Organizer and, in the left drop-down,
selected BSW.dot. This put Outline into the left pane.

I copied Outline into Normal.dot in the right pane.

[I should mention at this point that the Outline name is probably more
correct than BrainStorm because it will work for any incoming tabbed
outline. I tried changing the name in Organizer and, while it changed
it for that view, this didn't find its way out to the Macro list, even
after restarting Word.]


Assign hotkey:

There was no hot key combo associated with the macro. This is
something I shall have to investigate. There's a chance I removed it
deliberately in case it clashed with a user's existing settings.

However, I added a hotkey by going into Tools/Customize.../Keyboard...
then selecting Macros in categories and Outline in Macros. I chose
Ctrl+Alt+O then pressed Assign (easily forgotten, as I discovered).
Then Close/Close.


In action:

Paste a tabbed outline into a blank Word document, press your
preferred hotkey combo, and it turns into an outline according to your
chosen heading styles.

If the document was created as a New one using BSW.dot, then we have
chosen a set of heading styles for you.

Either way, if you click on Outline view, you now find the material
is presented with all the pluses and minuses in the right place.

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I haven't paid much attention to this as I then started using NoteMap, and the brainstorm models pate directly into NoteMap perfectly and NoteMap outlines send to Word perfectly.

Graham

Hopefully, by time, all outliners and the like will be able to speak OPML

This is unlikely, I'm afraid, though some outliners are able to export to OPML. A reason is that OPML is rather limited; for example, this is from the Freemind forum: "already the current version of OPML is insufficient. It does not contain most of what FreeMind already uses: colors, fonts, folded tag, edges and icons"

alx