The extent of attribute loss is dependent upon the desktop format and various settings (both in iThoughts and the desktop app.) This page attempts to clarify the situation. It is a best endeavour effort - if a certain attribute is fundamental your way of working, please drop me a line and I’ll describe the behaviour in more detail.

iThoughts has 93 built in icons - some, all or none are mapped onto their desktop equivalents. If icons are important to you then you can download the appropriate map above and see if the specific icon is supported.

Generally

1. •iThoughts will not import multiple sheets within the same map (only the first sheet.)
   

2. •iThoughts will not import ‘topic attachments’ (PDFs etc.) other than embedded topic images.
   

MyThoughts 1.3.3 (and above)

1. •The following attributes are not supported in MyThoughts - but they are 'round tripped' when going from iThoughts to MyThoughts to iThoughts.
   

1. •Floating branches
   

2. •Callout topics
   

3. •Boundaries
   

4. •Task Start/due Date
   

5. •Task Progress
   

6. •Task duration (effort)
   

7. •Task resources
   

1. •Not all icons are 'mapped' to an equivalent - but MyThoughts icons (not recognised by iThoughts) are round tripped when going from MyThoughts to iThoughts to MyThoughts.
   

2. •Individual word/character text attributes (colour, bold, italic, size etc.) are not transferred. Reason for this is that MyThoughts supports 'rich text' whereas iThoughts doesn't.
   

3. •MyThoughts supports multiple hyperlinks per topic - iThoughts only supports one.
   

4. •Only the line colour (in MyThoughts) is used when translating colour between the two apps.
   

Freemind 0.8.x (and above)

1. •Images are not imported or exported (they’re stored as links to files on disk in Freemind - they are not packaged up into a .mm file)
   

2. •0.8.x encodes the task information in the notes field whereas 0.9.x encodes the information in Freemind ‘attribute’ fields.
   

3. •Due Date is encoded for the Freemind Time Management Plugin (CTRL-T)
   

4. •Freemind only has 2 shapes (bubble and line.) iThoughts treats anything that is not a line as a bubble.
   

5. •Left/Right Justification is not exported or imported.
   

Novamind 4

1. •When importing, iThoughts does not decode Novamind ‘template’ settings meaning that ‘Rainbow’ colour schemes and colour/shape attributes, which have not been set explicitly, may not be imported correctly - resulting in default blue/rectangular topics.
   

2. •When exporting, iThoughts icons are embedded in the map - meaning that ALL icons are exported correctly from iThoughts. When importing, iThoughts can only map a subset of the Novamind icons.
   

Novamind 5

1. •When importing, iThoughts will recognise ‘template’ colours and shapes (including the Rainbow scheme.) The template information is not re-exported.
   

2. •When exporting, iThoughts icons are embedded in the map - meaning that ALL icons are exported correctly from iThoughts. When importing, iThoughts can only map a subset of the Novamind icons.
   

Mindmanager 6 (and above)

1. •When importing, iThoughts will recognise ‘template’ colours and shapes. The template information is not re-exported.
   

Mindview 3, 4

1. •When importing, iThoughts does not decode Mindview ‘template’ settings meaning that colour/shape attributes, which have not been set explicitly, may not be imported correctly - resulting in default blue/rectangular topics.
   

2. •All shapes are translated to ‘RoundedRectangle’ - for both import and export.
   

3. •Task management fields (resources and effort) are not supported.
   

XMind 3

1. •When importing, iThoughts does not decode XMind ‘template’ settings meaning that colour/shape attributes, which have not been set explicitly, may not be imported correctly - resulting in default blue/rectangular topics.
   

2. •The relative position of the immediate children of the root topic are not always accurately represented during import/export. This means that the left/rightness of branches can get switched around.
   

3. •XMind has no concept of an ‘Effort’ field
   

4. •XMind only supports assigned to - not resources.
   

iMindmap 4

1. •Icons are not exported and only a limited subset are imported.
   

2. •iThoughts topics tend to be multi-line boxes - which goes against the iMindmap philosophy of single lines of text written along the branch. When exporting to iMindmap I would recommend using ‘line shape’ for all topics.
   

3. •The layout information doesn’t export brilliantly - I would recommend selecting Tools|Auto Layout in iMindmap after opening an iThoughts export.
   

iMindmap 5

1. •Not all icons have an equivalent in iMindmap (and visa-versa)
   

2. •Task management attributes (due date etc.) are not supported.
   

ConceptDraw MINDMAP 6, 7

1. •When importing, iThoughts will recognise ‘template’ colours and shapes. The template information is not re-exported.
   

2. •ConceptDraw does not support Boundary Topics.
   

3. •No support for Effort and Resources fields.
   

MindGenius 3

1. •Topic position (left/right of root) is not imported into iThoughts
   

2. •Callout topics are not supported by MindGenius
   

3. •Images in topics are not imported or exported.
   

4. •Text attributes (bold, italic, size) are not imported or exported.
   

5. •No support for Effort and Resources fields
   

PDF

1. •The whole map is organised on a single page. This can cause problems for some viewers if the page (map) gets really large.
   

Image

1. •There is a limit on the size of PNG file that can be created (beyond which the iPhone will run out of memory and crash.) The limit (as imposed by iThoughts) is 18million square pixels - although the iPad will probably run out of memory long before that!