fmabap / xmind8-to-mermaid

Convert XMind 8 files to Mermaid flowchart

XMind 8 to Mermaid flowchart

This command line based program converts a XMind 8 file to a Mermaid flowchart.

It takes only the text of the shapes for the conversion.

It supports only XMind 8 files with one sheet / diagram.

How does it work

A XMind file is just a renamed ZIP-file. It contains among others the file content.xml. The program unzips and parses this XML-file. The XML will be converted into a Markdown-file that contains the Mermaid flowchart.

Installation

• The program requires Node.js. You can download and install it from here
• Clone or download this Git repository
• If you downloaded it then unzip it to a folder you like
• Open a terminal or the command prompt
• Use the cd command to switch to the folder where you unzipped or cloned the repository to
• Enter the following command npm install. This installs the dependencies
• Enter then the following command npm run build. This converts the source code into executable JS files

Execution of the program

You can run the program after the successful installation with the command npm run conv followed by the path to the XMind-file and an optional flowchart format option from the main folder of the program.

The Markdown-file will be created in the folder of the XMind-file with the name of the XMind-file.

Example: npm run conv "C:\test\myxmind.xmind" converts the XMind into "C:\test\myxmind.md"

Format options (directions)

There are the following format options (directions) of the Mermaid flowchart:

• TB - Top to bottom
• TD - Top-down/ same as top to bottom
• BT - Bottom to top
• RL - Right to left
• LR - Left to right

If no format option is entered then LR will be used.

You can find an explanation of it here

Example: npm run conv "C:\test\myxmind.xmind" TD converts the XMind-file with format option TD.