Export a MindManager Map to Microsoft Excel

Mind map users need to deal with the rest of the world, which lives in lists and spreadsheets. Even MindManager users themselves often have a need to look at their map context in a less graphical format for analysis or printing.

Map2Excel is a simple no-frills macro for exporting a map or portion of a map to Excel. It can be launched as a macro or using the new m2e GyroQ tag. If you select the central topic or nothing is selected, the whole map is exported; otherwise the children of the selected topic are exported.

Example map for excel export from MindManager

The macro prompts the user as to whether to export the map in tabular format, with parent information for each child topic included in each row, or in outline format:

Tabular Format Outline Format
Tabular export from MindManager to Excel Outline export from MindManager to Excel

UPDATE

This tool is now available as an MindManager add-in. For more information visit http://map2excel.com.

48 Comments »

  1. Bernhard said,

    May 18, 2009 @ 2:04 am

    Very nice tool. Something I will use quite often.

    There seems to be a little issue with the text length. If the text in MindManager gets too long the macro runs into an error in the subroutine at that following lines.

    If sheet.Columns(colnum).ColumnWidth<Len(t.Text) Then
    sheet.Columns(colnum).ColumnWidth=Len(t.Text)
    End If

    I guess the issue is that Len(t.Text) is longer than the allowable column with in Excel. Not sure how to fix it but though.

  2. ActivityOwner said,

    May 18, 2009 @ 6:58 am

    Thanks for the catch Bernhard. I uploaded that sets the maximum column width at 80. I don’t the precise maximum but that seems like a reasonable starting point. It is on the wiki and in the beta setup (setup112.exe).

  3. Bernhard said,

    May 19, 2009 @ 9:44 am

    That worked and actually allows modification of the maximum column width – a nice additional feature. Thanks for the update.

  4. Andyman said,

    November 13, 2009 @ 3:07 am

    Great macro – I use it a lot for exporting my “TO DO” lists.

    BUT it would be even greater with the following feature extensions:
    – Icon markers (Priority level and Completion status are especially important for a project manager)
    – Text markers (Especially “Resources”).

    Please keep up the good work. Thanks!

  5. ActivityOwner said,

    November 15, 2009 @ 11:08 pm

    Hi Andyman — Good suggestions. I modified the Map2Excel macro so that it now has the option for “extended information”.

    If you choose this, it puts the priority, completion status, and resources in the first few columns.

    What is more interesting with this version is that is now also includes hyperlinks to the topic and, if present, the link present on the topic.

    This could be a good way to jump back to maps or, if you are working from a dashboard, to the underlying map.

    The new code is in the “beta” ao-setup program as well as in the wiki. It can be run directly or called by the “m2e” gyroq tag.

    http://activityowner.com/installers/ao-setup-beta-download.php

  6. Steve said,

    January 16, 2010 @ 1:52 pm

    Am excited by this and trying to trial however I get this message. I have pasted the code into the macro editor and saved it. I have also saved the ao_common macro in the same way and in the same directory.

    I have added the macros to the MM Macro tool.

    —————————
    Mindjet MindManager
    —————————
    An error occurred while trying to access the macro:

    C:\Documents and Settings\Steve\Local Settings\Application Data\Mindjet\MindManager\8\macros\Map2Excel.mmbas

    Please check that the macro is valid.
    —————————
    OK
    —————————

  7. ActivityOwner said,

    January 16, 2010 @ 3:15 pm

    Try opening the macro inside the macro editor and hitting the play button and seeing where it points out the error being. The error will be listed in the lower left corner of the macro window. It could be you have some stray text text at beginning or end.

  8. Steve said,

    January 16, 2010 @ 4:49 pm

    Thanks. Without really knowing what I was doing I merged the macro with the ao_common macro to create a single macro and everything works fine. Great results – thanks.

  9. Thuy Tran said,

    January 18, 2010 @ 3:20 am

    Hello there,
    I am having a need of exporting a large Mind Manager map to Excel for data analysis. I’ve installed Map2Excel macro (setup133.exe), then open the map I want to export, select Macro button on the ribbon, navigate to Map2Excel macro file and Run. It prompts an error below:

    An error while trying to access the macro: C:\Program Files\Mindjet\MindManager 8\AO\ao_map2excel.mmbas. Please check that macro is valid.

    Do I miss any steps before calling Map2Excel macro? Please help advices. Many thanks.

  10. ActivityOwner said,

    January 18, 2010 @ 9:14 am

    Sorry — there was a typo in the macro (‘uses “ao_common.mmbas” should be ‘#uses “ao_common.mmbas” at the top).

    A fresh setup (setup134.exe) has been uploaded with corrected macro.

  11. Thuy Tran said,

    January 18, 2010 @ 11:40 pm

    I have added “#” as instructed. Now the Welcome to Mindmap.mmap file is being converted to Excel topic by topic visually. How fantastic the macro is! The tabular format really meets my need of data analysis. Thanks a ton.

  12. George said,

    February 17, 2010 @ 6:39 pm

    This is way cool!!! TY TY TY

  13. Mike said,

    March 8, 2010 @ 6:38 pm

    Great tool. Very helpful. I am in need of going the other direction. From Excel to MM8. I cannot seem to find anything besides a very basic macro. Is there some other tool you may have that does this?

    Thanks!

    Mike

  14. ActivityOwner said,

    March 8, 2010 @ 9:16 pm

    Hi MIke — What would your input Excel file look like and what would you want it to turn into on the MindManager side? It is pretty straightforward to go from MindManager to Excel in a defined way, but the reverse requires some definition/predictability on the Excel side.

  15. thorsten said,

    March 26, 2010 @ 11:20 am

    Hi,
    I have added the macro in my MM7 (company laptop, no admin rights) but it doesn’t work and prompts the error message:

    ————————
    An error occurred while trying to access the macro:

    C:\Documents and Settings\MYHOME\Local Settings\Application Data\Mindjet\MindManager\7\macros\Map2Excel.mmbas

    Please check that the macro is valid.
    ————————

    When I open the macro in the editor and press the play button, it stops at the entry

    ————————
    ‘#uses “ao_common.mmbas”
    ————————

    Can you please give me a hint what to do next? I have no clue about macros.

    Thanks
    Thorsten

  16. ActivityOwner said,

    March 27, 2010 @ 1:16 pm

    Hi — Sorry for delay in reply. It looks like you need to also download ao_common.mmbas into the same directory as the macro.

    http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=Ao_common.mmbas

  17. thorsten said,

    March 29, 2010 @ 3:10 am

    Hi AO,
    no problem, your reply arrived just in time. : ) Thank you very much for your support. Now it works great.

    Thanks again and
    Best wishes,
    Thorsten

  18. Jorik said,

    April 16, 2010 @ 3:32 am

    Hi,

    I get the same error message as Thorsten:

    ————————
    An error occurred while trying to access the macro:

    C:\..\..\..\..\Mindjet\MindManager\8\macros\Macro_map2excel.mmbas

    Please check that the macro is valid.
    ————————

    Now when I open the macro in editor and play it, it stops at the line:
    ————————
    Dim excelapp As Excel.Application
    ————————

    Can you please help me???

    Thanks,

    Jorik

  19. Jorik said,

    April 16, 2010 @ 4:07 am

    I don’t know if it’s possible, but maybe it is because I have mindmanager 8 in stead of mindmanager 7 like all people above! Or I have a newer version of Excel?

    Hope to hear from you soon!

    Thanks alot!

    Jorik

  20. Jorik said,

    April 16, 2010 @ 5:59 am

    Nevermind,

    I changed:
    ————————
    Dim excelapp As Excel.Application
    ————————

    Into:
    ————————
    Dim excelapp
    ————————

    Now it works!!!! :D

    Great Macro, thanks alot!!!

    Jorik

  21. ActivityOwner said,

    April 16, 2010 @ 7:37 am

    My guess is that the problem is that you need to go into macro editor for this macro and choose “edit”, “references”, and check off the right Microsoft Excel object library. Interesting that it works with your modification to the “dim” statement!

  22. Morten Bonde said,

    May 7, 2010 @ 7:37 am

    Hi there, this is a great macro and great support too (Thanks millions!!)

    Is there any way I can get the macro to also export the topic notes?

    Cheers,
    Morten

  23. ActivityOwner said,

    May 7, 2010 @ 7:20 pm

    Good suggestion. I have added notes export to the latest beta version in the setup.exe and to the wiki.

    Note that it only exports extended information for the final children topics in the map. Notes (and other extended information) in parent topics isn’t exported.

  24. Annie said,

    June 24, 2010 @ 5:38 am

    I am looking for a tool which can import data from Excel to MindManager. So the data is presented from Tabluar/Outline format into MindManager Map format. Can anyone help?

    Thank you.

  25. ActivityOwner said,

    June 24, 2010 @ 6:17 pm

    Hi Annie — Are you looking for tools that do precisely the reverse of what is shown above for this tool? I’m not familiar with anything out there right now.

    I think macros could be written to do this, but it would take several hours and I don’t know when I’ll find the time. I’d also need to figure out how to connect up to a particular existing spreadsheet rather than just create a new spreadsheet as is done here.

    The “next action” on the blog is to do some programming tutorials, so perhaps this could be the example we use.

  26. edboy said,

    October 7, 2010 @ 10:22 am

    Hi,

    I am getting the same Error as Jorik. Can you please help me?

    I am using Mindmanager Pro7 and Office 2010

    Thanks! :)

  27. ActivityOwner said,

    October 8, 2010 @ 7:39 pm

    Did you try editing the macro and changing the line with dim excelapp line as he did and/or checking the references?

  28. gypsy1962 said,

    October 27, 2010 @ 6:06 pm

    Hi,

    I wonder how difficult it might be to add or enable excel’s outline feature while exporting using your macro?

    Thanks!

  29. Tom ter Haar said,

    November 3, 2010 @ 10:46 am

    Hello everybody,

    very nice Macro, I’m using it now for three weeks without any problems.
    I’ve only one problem, I need an extra column with an link to the attachment.
    How can I add a column with a link to the attachment?

    Thanks!

  30. ActivityOwner said,

    November 3, 2010 @ 6:17 pm

    The existing macro links back to the topic itself, from which you could click on the attachment to open it. I don’t believe there is a way to link back to the attachment(s) in one click.

    It might be possible to write a macro to follow the link and then open the 1st attachment, or to save the attachments out to a temporary directory and then link to them there but it would take some focused time.

    What type of application are you using the macro for?

  31. DMC said,

    December 8, 2010 @ 4:20 pm

    Fantastic Macro, thank you for your time in putting this together! I’m using MM9 and the Macro works great. Is it possible also export Tags associated with each item?
    Thanks again for the good work!

  32. ActivityOwner said,

    December 8, 2010 @ 11:01 pm

    I added a version to the wiki that exports text markers (now tags in v9). Give it a try:

    http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=Map2Excel.mmbas

    It will only export the tags for the terminal topics in the tree.

  33. DMC said,

    December 9, 2010 @ 6:14 pm

    Wow, Cool, Thank You!

  34. Vijay said,

    December 13, 2010 @ 2:26 am

    I am using Mindmanager Pro7 and Office 2010 and when I run the macro Map2Excel.mmbas I get the following error

    “Expecting an existing scalar var”

    at the line
    sheet.Cells(rownum,1).Formula = “=Hyperlink(” & Chr(34) & LinkToThisTopic(t) & Chr(34) & “,” & Chr(34) & “topic” & Chr(34) & “)”

    Please let me regarding this.

    I have made the change with respect to “excelapp” and also added the MindManager references.

  35. ActivityOwner said,

    December 15, 2010 @ 9:10 pm

    Hi Vijay — Sorry for the delay in my reply. My first guess is that there is something wrong with the references given that I use Office 2007 and 2003 and haven’t moved to 2010 yet.

    Can you open the macro in the macro editor and click on “Edit, References” and ensure that the Microsoft Excel 5.0 Object Library is checked? It might need to use a later version if 2010 doesn’t still have the 5.0 object library available.

    Let us know how you make out.

  36. Tom Hodgers said,

    December 22, 2010 @ 11:00 pm

    I had the same problem as Vijay, but with MM 8 and Excel 2010. Strangely I didn’t have problems with the beta version of Office 2010.

    The inclusion of the Microsoft Excel 5.0 Object Library worked perfectly, just had to modify the newly shown AO-MAP2EXCEL to open in a menu (I chose “Save As”).

    Many thanks,

    Tom

  37. admin said,

    January 24, 2011 @ 10:36 pm

    Things are getting a bit complex these days in terms of the diversity of versions of software out there.

    You have…

    OS: 32 bit/64 bit/international versions(paths)
    Office: 2003, 2007, 2010 (64 and 32 bit)
    MindManager: 8, 9

    Its difficult for me to make sure I have installation that works for all these scenarios. I could do it, but I’d need to triple my prices :-). I need to ask users/potential users to please post a comment anywhere on the blog when you run into a road block, and I’ll try to help you out asap.

  38. Mohammad said,

    February 3, 2011 @ 4:17 am

    Hi every body
    A great site!

    1) I downloaded both ao_command and Map2Excel Macros and saved them with same names in macro folders but whenever I play the codes it stuck on the line “Option explicit”
    I would be appreciate if you could find the base of the error.

    2) Also I just want to know if there is any code that save the attachments in separate folder and code them. or after making an excel file attach the attachment to their related rows?

  39. ActivityOwner said,

    February 10, 2011 @ 12:25 am

    Hello Mohammad — Can you check to see what the error message is in the bottom left corner of the macro editor when it gets stuck? I haven’t seen issues at that line before.

    I haven’t done any work to add attachment to the export. I didn’t even realize you can bring attachments into Excel like that. Its not something I can work on in the near term.

  40. Mohammad said,

    February 10, 2011 @ 3:24 am

    Hi again. Thnx for your response

    the message in the left corner is as below:
    —-
    “unterminated block statement”
    —-
    what does it mean to you?

  41. ActivityOwner said,

    February 10, 2011 @ 6:32 am

    My guess is that when you cut/paste the code in from the wiki you missed the last (End Sub) line from one of the macros?

  42. Mohammad said,

    February 10, 2011 @ 12:30 pm

    I’ll check and inform you.
    best wishes

  43. Ian said,

    March 5, 2011 @ 4:31 pm

    Thank you so much this is fantastic, you dont know how much time you have saved me.
    Thank you Im so indebted.
    All the best

  44. Map2Excel Add-in Available » ActivityOwner.Com – Getting Things Done with MindManager said,

    March 13, 2011 @ 11:14 am

    […] Map2Excel tool has been converted to an easily installable MindManager add-in. More information is available here. […]

  45. Mark said,

    June 2, 2011 @ 3:17 pm

    Win XP 64, MM 9.2.504

    Just downloaded your Map2excel and installed. Get the error message “Unable to load the “Map2Excel.Connect” Add-In. This Add-In will be disabled.”

    Any ideas?

    Thanks in advance

  46. Susanne said,

    August 10, 2011 @ 7:12 am

    Hi,

    for me, it seems as if this add-in might be my rescue. But it doesn´t work.
    I install and install but it doesn´t appear in mm.
    I have MM7 and Excel2010.
    Can anybody help me?

    Thanks. Susanne

  47. ActivityOwner said,

    August 10, 2011 @ 8:39 pm

    Hi Susanne – the addin is only compiled for v8 and v9. You can install the mindreader for gyroq addin and run the map2excel mmbas macro to get similar functionality.

  48. Fred said,

    September 21, 2011 @ 1:11 pm

    I am trying to find an executable file for “Map2Excel” and download it. But, where the F… is the Map2Excel exe file anyway? All this Ural send me to another page and another page again.

    For Gods sake do something right

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