7.3. Can I import my existing documentation?

Manula does not have a feature for automatically importing/converting existing manuals or documentation.

So how I do get existing content into Manula?

If you want to transfer documents to Manula, the quickest way is to:

1. Think of a good manual structure and create it in Manula’s Table of Content, using just empty topics.
2. Then copy your existing content over, by Copying / Pasting the raw content, topic by topic.
3. Re-apply the formatting using Manula’s formatting tools, headers, bold, bullets, etc…
4. Re-insert your images into the topics using Manula’s Image Manager.
   

This may sound like a lot of work, but usually this can be done pretty quickly.

Why is there no import feature?

Here’s the most important reasons why we have decided not to work on an import feature:

1. It would be next to impossible to import existing content while keeping all formatting and image placement intact. Which means that even if we allowed importing content, it would still be a lot of work afterwards, to re-apply formatting and to re-insert images.
2. Manula manuals are divided into a multi-level topic structure. Even though most existing documentation (e.g. Word docs) have some kind of division into chapters, it always manual labour (pun not intended) to further divide topics into sub-topics. An import feature cannot do that for you.
3. One of the benefits of online manuals created with Manula is that they adapt to the reader’s screen size (desktop/tablet/phone). When moving to Manula, it is a good idea to also re-think your documentation to make that work well, e.g. in terms of layout, image size and placement, using tables, etc…

Alternative: use our Conversion Service

If you want to move your manual to Manula, but do not want to transfer/convert the content yourself, then you may be interested in our Conversion Service.

The costs for the conversion consist of:

• A variable fee that depends on the amount and complexity of your content, and the number of images.
• Pre-paying for a Manula subscription for 1 year, the cost of which depends on the number of manuals.
  

To make you a conversion offer, we need to receive:

1. Your existing, formatted documentation (PDF, Word, HTML, etc…).
2. All included images in separate image files.
   

Interested in our Conversion Service? Then please contact us here.