Docs/Export/Document exports

Document exports

When you want to share your work outside Minerva, you can turn a note into a document. Pick a format — Markdown, a web page, or a PDF — and choose whether to export just one note or a note along with everything it links to.

What you can export

Every export starts from a note. You decide the format and whether to include the notes it links to.

Markdown
A plain copy of your notes, exactly as you wrote them — the simplest way to get your files out.
A note as clean Markdown
A single note, tidied up so it reads well on its own.
A note and its links as Markdown
A note together with every note it links to, gathered into one downloadable set of Markdown files.
A note as a web page
A single note saved as a self-contained web page you can open in any browser.
A note and its links as web pages
A note and everything it links to, saved as a set of linked web pages.
A note as a PDF
A single note rendered to a polished PDF.
A note and its links as one PDF
A note and everything it links to, combined into a single PDF.

PDF styles

A PDF can be typeset in one of three styles, chosen under Style in the export dialog. Minerva remembers your choice for each thoughtbase. Every style keeps the text selectable, the links working and the bibliography.

Notes
The page as it looks in Minerva.
Essay
A single reading column in a book face, with a title block made from the note's title, and its author and date if it has them. Headings stay with the text that follows them, and tables, figures and code aren't split across pages where they fit on one.
Academic
Compact and in two columns, with numbered headings. The title block spans the page, with an abstract: the note's abstract, or else its opening paragraph. The references run across the full width at the end.

A note and its links exported as one PDF takes the same style for every chapter, under its own title page and contents.

Live content in exports

Some things in a note draw themselves live in the preview rather than showing as text. A web page or PDF export shows them the way the preview does, not as the text behind them:

Object views
Lists, tables and galleries of your typed notes appear as they do in the preview. A map becomes a still picture framed like the preview, with the map's credit line — light, unless the view chose a dark map; if the map can't be drawn — offline, say — the places are listed as a table instead.
Query blocks
The answer, as a list, table or chart — not the query.
Diagrams
Flowcharts and other diagrams appear drawn.
Argument maps
The map of claims and their support, drawn.
Saved cell results
A compute cell's saved output — text, a table, an image — as the preview shows it.
Charts
A still picture of the chart.

A Markdown export is a copy of what you wrote, so it keeps all of these as the text you'd see in the editor.

Your notes connect to each other with [[wiki links]]. When you export, you choose how those links should appear in the finished document:

Remove the link
The link becomes plain text. A good fit when you're exporting a single note and the linked note isn't coming along.
Show the note's title
The link is replaced by the title of the note it points to — helpful when the reader can't click through anyway.
Keep it clickable
When the linked note is part of the same export, the link stays live so readers can follow it; otherwise it falls back to showing the title. Best when you're exporting a whole set of connected notes.

Link previews. In Minerva, pointing at a link shows the linked note's title and the start of its text. A set of linked web pages does the same: point at a link, or move to it with the Tab key, and the same preview appears. A preview only ever shows a note that's part of the export, so a link to a private or left-out note shows nothing. A single web page has no previews, because none of the notes it links to come with it. A PDF has none either. Its links are ordinary links you can click, to the page or file they point to, but a PDF can't show anything when you point at one.