You can import texts into a MAXQDA project in various ways:
- drag text files from the Windows Explorer or macOS Finder directly into the documents window,
- click the plus icon in the documents window, or
- go to Import > Texts, PDFs, Tables in the main menu.
For general information on importing files and organizing them, see Import and Group your Data.
Preparing text documents before import
If you want to import text documents into MAXQDA, you should think about how to prepare them. For example, if you want to analyze specific text passages as single units, it makes sense to put them together in the same paragraph. This makes it easier to automatically code these paragraphs in MAXQDA.
Here are some things to remember when importing a text document into a MAXQDA project:
- All formatting (e.g., bold, italics) as well as typefaces and font sizes are kept.
- Most of the paragraph formatting (e.g., right-justified, line height) is kept.
- The text may contain tables, pictures, graphics, etc.
- Whether objects such as graphics are imported or not can be determined in the local preferences of the "Document System" window. The preferences can be opened by clicking on the cogwheel icon in the upper-right corner of the window.
- Contents of headers and footers are ignored.
- Footnotes are added at the end of the text, and they are converted to endnotes.
Color highlighting and comments
Color highlighting in a Word document is imported into MAXQDA as codings. A parent code named "Word/PDF highlighting" is created at the top level of the code system. For each color, a subcode with the color name in English is created and assigned to the corresponding text passage.
Comments in Word documents are imported as in-document memos and can be displayed in the "Document Browser". Several related comments (threads) are combined into one memo.
The option to code highlighted text and import comments as in-document memos during import can be turned on/off in the settings of the "Document System". The preferences can be opened by clicking on the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the window.
Markdown documents (.md)
MAXQDA supports importing Markdown files (.md). Markdown formatting is converted to rich text on import; headings, bold and italic text, tables, lists, blockquotes, and horizontal rules are all rendered as formatted text in the documents window.
In-text tables
MAXQDA can import tables included in text documents, and you can code parts or whole cells of these tables in MAXQDA. The only limitation here is that the table size and column widths cannot be changed once it has been imported.
Links to websites embedded in texts
Documents imported into MAXQDA can also contain links to websites. Clicking on the link in MAXQDA opens the webpage in the default browser.
These links always consist of two parts: the visible text and the address of the link. If you hover over the link, you can see the link address in the tooltip.
For more information, see Links in MAXQDA.
