How to copy from draw.io to WhimsicalCopied!Link to this section

1. Open your diagram in draw.io and select what you want to bring over.
2. Copy it with Cmd + C (Mac) or Ctrl + C (PC). Edit → Copy works too.
3. Open a Whimsical board and paste with Cmd + V (Mac) or Ctrl + V (PC).

Your diagram pastes at one and a half times its draw.io size, so it reads well next to the rest of your board.

How to import a draw.io fileCopied!Link to this section

1. Get your diagram as a file. In draw.io, go to File → Save as and save it to your device as a .drawio file.
2. Drag the file onto a Whimsical board. You can also copy the file and paste it onto the board with Cmd + V (Mac) or Ctrl + V (PC).

Your diagram lands where you drop it. If a file has several pages, each page lands in its own section, titled with the page name. You can drop several files at once, and they land side by side.

Import into a folderCopied!Link to this section

Drop draw.io files into a Whimsical folder to turn each one into its own board, named after the file. A file with several pages becomes a multipage file, with one board for each page.

Import PNG and SVG exportsCopied!Link to this section

draw.io can keep a copy of your diagram inside the images it exports. In draw.io, go to File → Export as → PNG or SVG and check Include a copy of my diagram. Drop the .drawio.png or .drawio.svg file onto a board or folder, and Whimsical imports the diagram inside it, not just the picture.

If an image doesn't have a diagram inside it, it's added as a picture instead.

Open a draw.io file without draw.ioCopied!Link to this section

You don't need draw.io open to bring a .drawio file into Whimsical. Whimsical reads the file itself, so you can drop it onto a board to view the diagram, edit it and share it with your team.

What comes acrossCopied!Link to this section

DiagramsCopied!Link to this section

• Flowchart and basic shapes, with their text, facing, flipped and rotated the way they are in draw.io
• Connectors, which stay attached to their shapes and keep their arrowheads, labels, curves, bends and elbows
• Groups, containers, swimlanes and pools, which become sections holding everything inside them
• Tables, which become Whimsical tables
• Mind maps, which become real Whimsical mind maps with auto-layout
• Sticky notes, which become Whimsical sticky notes
• Callouts, which become speech bubbles
• Block arrows, which become thick connectors
• Dividers, which become lines
• Images, with their crops, flips and captions

Technical diagramsCopied!Link to this section

• AWS, Azure and Google Cloud icons, which become Whimsical's cloud icons
• Icons from other libraries, like Cisco, network and Office. Common ones become matching Whimsical icons. The rest become labeled placeholder icons.
• UML classes and ER entities, which become tables
• ER connectors, with their crow's feet
• UML sequence diagrams, with their lifelines and messages
• BPMN shapes, like events and gateways

Wireframes and mockupsCopied!Link to this section

• Mockup elements, like buttons, inputs and toggles, which become Whimsical wireframe elements inside a window

FormattingCopied!Link to this section

• Fills and borders
• Dashed lines
• Bold, italic, strikethrough and links
• Text alignment and text size
• Colors, matched to the closest color in your board's palette. draw.io's pastel colors come across as lighter tints.

LimitationsCopied!Link to this section

• Some shapes become rectangles. Shapes without a Whimsical match keep their text and connectors but become rectangles. This includes documents, notes, cards, tapes, steps, cubes, predefined processes, manual inputs, delays, displays, stored data, off-page links and logic gates. Bent block arrows and arrows with more than two heads become rectangles too.
• Some shapes change slightly. Octagons and pentagons become hexagons, and stars become starbursts. Very rounded rectangles become pills, and other rounded rectangles become regular rectangles.
• Open and hollow arrowheads are filled.
• Merged table cells aren't merged. A table's title sits in its widest column.
• Colors are matched, not copied exactly. You can update your color theme to match your brand.
• Fonts aren't carried over. Text is shown in our Dinsical font. Underlining set in draw.io's text style isn't kept.
• Hidden shapes are skipped. This includes shapes on hidden layers and inside collapsed containers.
• Pasting a whole draw.io file's XML brings its first page. Drop the file instead to get every page.
• Very large files can't be imported. Files can have up to 100 pages, with up to 10,000 shapes on a page, tables are imported wit hup to 2,000 cells.

Tips for a smooth migrationCopied!Link to this section

• Paste or import into a fresh Whimsical board first while you get a feel for it.
• Have a file with lots of pages? Drop it into a folder to keep each page as its own board.
• If you see Couldn't paste selection, try copying fewer objects at a time.

Frequently asked questionsCopied!Link to this section

Should I copy and paste, or import the file?Copied!Link to this section

Copy and paste is quickest for part of a diagram or a single page. Import the file to bring over every page at once, each in its own section or board.

Does this work with diagrams.net?Copied!Link to this section

Yes. diagrams.net is draw.io's other name, and it's the same app. This also works with the draw.io desktop app and draw.io for VS Code.

Can I import older .dio files?Copied!Link to this section

Yes. Whimsical reads .dio files, and the .dio.png and .dio.svg images the VS Code extension exports, the same way as .drawio files.