The kGTD file format
 

From OmniFocus Help, it seems like that the only importable format is kGTD. And by searching this forum, there might be a way of importing through OmniOutliner.

I guess I can use kGTD way if I know the file format. Where can I get the file format of kGTD to be imported from OmniFocus?

Or

Is there any easy way of importing 'text/cvs/xls or whatever' format from OmniFocus?

No, kGTD isn't the only import format supported, it's just one that happened to be particularly useful for those of us who used OmniFocus' predecessor. A kGTD document is just an OmniOutliner document, and OmniFocus recognizes the particular format and skips the step where it asks you for confirmation of how it should map columns from the document into the database.

If you tell us what you are trying to import, and give an example of its formatting, we can probably make some suggestions about the easiest way to proceed. If you just have a list of actions, copy and paste is about as simple as it gets. Copy the list, click on the dot at the left end of the row where you want it inserted (make a blank action if necessary), paste, and now you've got an action for each and every row of text in the clipboard. If you have actions indented under projects in your file (with tabs), doing the same steps into OmniOutliner will get you a document that can then be sent into OmniFocus as projects and actions.

> If you tell us what you are trying to import, and give an example of its formatting, we can probably make some suggestions about the easiest way to proceed.

I just want to generate the TODO list using 3rd party tool, process it to be read from OmniFocus. I want to get an automatic process.

> OmniFocus recognizes the particular format and skips the step where it asks you for confirmation of how it should map columns from the document into the database.

And the file format of OmniOutliner looks like binary one. Where can I get the doc/info about this?

[QUOTE=smcho;74035]And the file format of OmniOutliner looks like binary one. Where can I get the doc/info about this?[/QUOTE]

From the OmniOutliner Help:

[QUOTE]A plain OmniOutliner 3 file is a simple XML-based text file. If you are so inclined, you can open it up in a text editor or manipulate it with text-processing scripts and the like.

Be aware that if you have selected the Compress on Disk checkbox in the Document inspector, the file will be saved in a binary format (using the gzip compression method) and will not be readable as a plain text file.

Also remember that if an OmniOutliner 3 file has ever had a file attached to it, it will have become a Mac OS X package containing the XML contents and the attached files. In that case you'll need to go inside the package to find the XML text file.[/QUOTE]

But if you're going to go to all the trouble to auto-generate an OmniOutliner XML file, why not just use plain text, one action per line? Then just copy and paste into OmniFocus.

The best way to do this is:
[LIST=1][*]Select an existing action in your OmniFocus main outline where you'd like to insert your list of new actions. The inbox might be a good place to use as a beachhead.

[*]Make sure you're not in edit mode on that action, otherwise a paste operation will paste the entire clipboard contents into a single action's title, which is probably not what you want.

[*]With the existing action selected, copy and paste your plain text actions. OmniFocus will create a new action for each line of text pasted.

[*]Organize new actions as desired.[/LIST]
-Dennis