# Import and export

Bring Markdown, HTML, Typst, plain text and Entz files in as documents, take a document out as Markdown, HTML, Typst or an Entz file, and know what each format keeps.

Files come in as new documents, and a document goes out as a file or onto the clipboard. Entz's own format, `.ent`, holds a document exactly as it is; the others keep what they can express, which the table at the end of this page sets out.

## Bring files in

- **New…** > **Import files…** in the library opens the system's file picker, where you can choose several files at once.
- On the web, drop files anywhere on the library page.
- Paste text into a document ([Pasting](/docs/import-export/#pasting)).

Each file becomes a new document named after the file. One file opens at once; several stay in the library, and a notice says how many came in ([The library](/docs/library/)). The file's extension says how it is read:

| Extension | Read as |
|---|---|
| `.md`, `.markdown`, `.mdown` | Markdown |
| `.html`, `.htm` | HTML |
| `.typ`, `.typst` | Typst |
| `.ent` | An Entz document |
| `.txt`, `.text`, and any other | Plain text |

A `.json` file is never taken for an Entz document: it comes in as plain text.

What each format brings:

- **Markdown**, as GitHub writes it: headings, lists and task lists, quotes, code blocks (a `mermaid` or `latex` block draws its diagram or formula), tables, images, dividers, `$$` formulas, links, bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, and front matter.
- **HTML**: headings, paragraphs, lists with their checkboxes, quotes, code, tables, images, links, and formatting down to underline, highlights and text colours. Scripts, styles and forms are dropped, and nothing in the file runs.
- **Typst**: its markup and its common functions. Anything Entz has no block for, such as `#let` or `#set`, is kept as a Typst code block, so the file exports back unchanged.
- **Plain text**: a paragraph at each blank line, with single line breaks kept.
- **`.ent`**: the document exactly as it was exported, drawings, chips and colours included.

The conversion happens when you first open the new document. Until then its card shows an outline of a Markdown file, or the first lines of any other.

### Pasting

- Text copied from an Entz document keeps everything: blocks, formatting, chips.
- Text that reads as Markdown, such as a heading, a list, a table, a fenced block or `**bold**` words, comes in formatted.
- Other text comes in plain: formatted text copied from another app arrives as its words alone. An `.html` file keeps its formatting, so import the file instead.

Pasting images is covered in [Images and drawings](/docs/drawings/): the web pastes them, the phones cannot yet.

## Take a document out

An open document's header has two buttons for it:

- **Copy as Markdown** (two overlapping pages) puts the document on the clipboard as Markdown.
- **Export** (the share icon) opens a menu of **Markdown**, **HTML**, **Typst** and **Entz**, and saves the document as a file named after its title, ending in `.md`, `.html`, `.typ` or `.ent`.

Where the file goes:

- **Web**: the browser downloads it.
- **iPhone**: into Entz's folder in the Files app, under **On My iPhone**, and Files opens on it.
- **Android**: into Entz's own storage, and Android opens it in an app that can show it (as plain text when no app claims the format).

On a phone, exporting the same document in the same format again replaces the earlier file.

An export holds the tab you are looking at ([Tabs](/docs/tabs/)). No export holds the comments ([Comments](/docs/comments/)) or the version history ([History](/docs/history/)): they live beside the document.

## What each format keeps

| | Markdown | HTML | Typst | Entz (`.ent`) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Headings, paragraphs, lists, quotes, code, dividers, links | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Task lists | Yes | Yes, with checkboxes | As `☐` and `☑` items | Yes |
| Bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Underline, highlight, text colour | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tables | Yes, without cell colours | Yes, with cell colours | As a plain grid | Yes |
| Dates and dropdowns | As their words | As labels (a date as `2026-10-06`) | As their words | Yes |
| Images | Yes, by their address | Yes | As `#image` calls | Yes |
| Drawings | Left out | As pictures | Left out | Yes |
| Diagrams and formulas | As their source | As their source | As their source | Yes |

A few things to know:

- The HTML file is a page of its own, styled to read well in a browser, light or dark with the reader's system. A diagram or formula in it shows its source text, not the picture.
- Images travel as they are kept. An image stored inside the document, such as a small one you added, is written into the file; one stored elsewhere, such as a large image on the server, is a link to it.
- A dropdown that nobody has picked from yet exports as nothing in Markdown.
- In a Typst file a formula keeps its LaTeX source, which Typst's own math syntax does not always read the same way.
- A document exported as Entz and imported again is the same document: every block, mark, chip, colour, drawing and image. The import makes a new document of it, with none of the original's comments, history or people.