A document can leave Storyflow in three formats, or stay put and be shared by link.

The three export formats

Open the document and use Export document, then choose:

• PDF for something final: sending to a client, printing, attaching to an email.
• Word document (.docx) for something that still has to be edited, or where someone else's process expects Word.
• Plain text for pasting into another tool without carrying any styling across.

What survives the export

Both PDF and Word keep the structure of the document rather than flattening it to text:

• Headings, at all three levels
• Bullet and numbered lists
• Bold, italic and other inline formatting
• Links, which become real clickable hyperlinks in Word rather than blue text
• Blockquotes, code blocks and horizontal rules
• Images

Plain text is exactly what it says: the words, with the formatting removed. Use it when the styling is the thing you are trying to get rid of.

Exporting several at once

You do not have to open a document to export it, and you do not have to do them one at a time.

• Select a document on the canvas and export it as PDF or Word from the selection toolbar or the right-click menu
• Select several documents and they arrive as a single zip, rather than a stack of separate downloads your browser argues with
• The same works from the mobile selection sheet

Images work the same way: select two or more, or right-click a whole wall of them, and they come down as one archive.

Sharing instead of exporting

If the person only needs to read or comment, a share link is usually better than a file. The document stays live, so they always see the current version instead of whatever was true when you exported. See Sharing Projects.

Tips and tricks

Word for handover, PDF for delivery. If there is any chance of edits coming back, send the .docx. A PDF marked up in a PDF reader is much harder to fold back into the document than tracked edits in Word.

Check headings before exporting. The document's heading structure becomes the document structure in Word and the visual hierarchy in the PDF. Text that only looks like a heading because it is bold will not carry across as one.

Plain text strips deliberately. Exporting to plain text and pasting back in is a quick way to clear inherited formatting from content pasted in from elsewhere.

Good to know

Exporting takes a moment on long documents because the file is generated for you rather than in the browser. You will see a confirmation when it is ready.