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Copy-paste in Tana

There are many ways to copy and paste content in and out of Tana

Basics

In Tana, there are different ways to get content in and out.

  • To make it easy to link notes together, Ctrl/Cmd+C/V inside Tana will create references, not duplicate content.
  • The command Duplicate creates a copy of a node
  • Ctrl/Cmd+C/V will work as you're used to from other apps when copying data out into other tools
  • There are various copy options that will copy content to your clipboard; copy link, full content, as markdown, as Tana Paste.
  • For exporting larger sets of nodes, you can use the Download as command, which will give you a zip file with markdown or Tana Paste.
  • You can paste code into Tana with the Paste as code or Paste code as (select language) commands.
  • You can export a workspace as markdown or JSON .

Documentation

Copy to create references

Tana lets you build a network of notes, and is designed to connect existing notes instead of creating duplicates.

Ctrl/Cmd+C/V - you may be used to using these copy-paste keyboard shortcuts to duplicate content, but in Tana this is used to create References.

  • In Tana, you can have mirror copies of nodes. These copies reference the original node, hence their name Reference, and are one and the same for all intents and purposes.
  • Editing one reference edits the original and thus every other reference of this node in Tana.
  • When you delete references, you're not deleting the original node, just the reference.
  • In addition to doing Ctrl/Cmd+C/V , you can also create a reference by typing @ and searching for the node you wan to reference.

Duplicate

If you want to make a duplicate of a node, you can open the command line (Cmd/Ctrl+K) and type Duplicate. This will create a copy of the node, not a reference (if you want to edit them separately for example).

Copy-paste options

Copy-pasting content is the fastest way of getting data out of Tana into other apps.

Select the content you want to copy, then hit Cmd/Ctrl+C. To paste, Cmd/Ctrl+V into the other tool.

Copy options

Via the command line (Cmd/Ctrl+K) there are various flavors of copy available to you. All of these will copy the content to your clipboard.

Copies just a link to the node.

Copies a link to the node, but also includes the ID and title of the node in HTML format. This is useful for sharing links e.g. in Slack, to see which node was shared.

Copy full content to clipboard

Copies the selected content in plain text format, so it can be pasted into other apps. Should not be used for large selections of nodes, as the clipboard has limitations. Use Download as instead.

Copy as markdown

Copies the selected content in plain markdown format (.md files), that can be opened and browsed in a file manager or another app supporting markdown.

Copy as markdown no fields, no tags

Copies the selected content in plain markdown format without including Supertags or fields

  • This is great if you want to share information with people who are not using Tana and are not familiar with the concept of supertags and fields.

Copy as Tana Paste

Copies the selected content in Tana Paste format.

Paste into Tana

Commands "Paste as code" / "Paste code as ->"

You can paste code from your clipboard via the "Paste as code" command, and it will be shown as a monospaced block. Select the language from the dropdown to get the correct syntax highlighting.

Pasting from Google Sheets

Copy-pasting cells from a Google Sheet will appear as a table in Tana.

Pasting Tana Paste

If you copy Tana Paste code and paste it in Tana, it will run a special process which will convert the Tana Paste code as Tana objects. Go here to read more about Tana Paste.

Other ways to get content out

Export/download

Download a subset of nodes

Only want to export parts of your workspace? Try these steps:

1. Open the nodes you want to export/download, either in a search node or inside a node

2. Select the nodes you want to download:

  • Put the cursor on the title node - this will export the title of nodes below/inside this (but not the content inside those)
  • Select nodes manually, or open command line (Ctrl/Cmd+K) -> Select children -> Enter (to select all the nodes) - this will include the content inside the nodes

3. Open command line (Ctrl/Cmd+K) and select one of these options:

  • Download as markdown to zip file
    • This will give you the nodes in .md format
    • Images/video files will not be included in the export, but there will be links to view/download them individually.
  • Download as markdown no field, no tags to zip file
    • Same as above, but not including supertags and fields (since they are Tana-specific concepts).
  • Download as Tana Paste to zip file (read more about Tana Paste)

4. You will be asked to save the file and can rename it.

5. Unzip the file to browse the markdown files (.md format).

Export plain HTML

Renders a HTML page of the selected content that you can copy the HTML of, or save as a HTML file.

Export workspace as markdown or JSON

Each workspace can be exported in Markdown or JSON format.

The Markdown export is intended to be used for export to other tools, or for browsing the files, and should be used in most cases.

The JSON export is for technical use cases, where you want the full export with all metadata.

To learn more about this, read here.

Related release notes

  • ImprovedCode blocks/paste as code: Language picker only shown on hover, and you can type to search. Highlighting updates when you edit. Button to copy code. ()
  • FixedPasting text to Tana from other apps will now keep the right order of paragraphs/lists ()
  • FixedWe no longer trim whitespace when copying text from Tana ()
  • ImprovedPasting Markdown (with correct mime-type) now at least *tries* to read the headers and make an outline from that. It also supports some **markdown** _formatting_ now. ()

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