Import & export

Exporting

Select the lorebook in the editor and click the export button (file icon, Export Lorebook). The browser downloads <lorebook name>.json with:

• the lorebook and all its sub lorebooks (every level), with their names, enabled state and tags;
• every entry with its content, note, order, filter, insertion mode, tags and negative tags.

Use it to keep a copy, to share a world with other users, or to move it to another installation. The data that extensions keep in a lorebook or an entry is in the file too, and is restored by the import. Entry revisions of the Lorebook VCS extension belong to the old entries and do not show on the entries the import creates; the extension has its own export for them.

Exporting for SillyTavern

The export button opens a menu with two items: Export Lorebook (the file above) and Export to SillyTavern, which downloads the lorebook as a SillyTavern world info file that SillyTavern can import. It is the reverse of the import:

The sub lorebooks are merged: the file has the entries of the lorebook first, then those of its sub lorebooks, as SillyTavern has no lorebooks inside lorebooks. What SillyTavern has no counterpart for is left out: the Note of an entry, negative tags together with tags, the data of extensions. SillyTavern matches the keys in the recent chat, see what works differently for the other direction.

Importing a Marginalia lorebook

1. Click the import button (file icon) and choose Import Marginalia Lorebook.
2. Upload a file exported from Marginalia.

The import always creates new lorebooks - the lorebook and its sub lorebooks, with the same structure - even when you already have lorebooks with the same names. The imported lorebook is selected in the editor. Tags are matched by name with your existing tags, or created.

Files from older Marginalia versions (a single lorebook without sub lorebooks) can be imported too.

Importing an archive of text files

1. Click the import button and choose Import from archive.
2. Upload a .zip file with .md (Markdown) files.
3. Check the entry names in the table and change them if you want, then click Import.

Marginalia creates a new lorebook named after the file (without .zip) with one entry for each .md file. The files are taken in the order of their names, numbers inside the names compared as numbers (2.md comes before 10.md), also in folders of the archive; the entries get the Order 1, 2, 3... in that sequence. The whole file is the Content. Other files, folders, hidden files (.name) and the __MACOSX folder of archives made on a Mac are skipped.

Entry names are filled in from, in this order:

1. a file names.txt in the root of the archive: one name on a line, the first line for the first .md file in the order above, and so on (an empty line leaves that file to the next rule; extra lines are ignored). Use it to name many files at once, for example from a script;

2. the first heading of the file (# Chapter 1 gives Chapter 1);

3. the file name without .md.

The table in the dialog shows the result, and you can type over any name.

The import then shows its progress. Stop ends it after the entry that is being stored: the lorebook keeps the entries that were already imported (the import is not undone), and a message tells how many of the files were imported.

The entries are imported disabled: they have no filter, so enabled they would be sent with every request, which for a whole book of chapters is hardly wanted. Turn on the ones you need, with a filter or tags - Mass edit is the quick way to do it for many entries.

To put the same files into a story as parts instead, see Importing text files.

Importing SillyTavern world info

1. Click the import button and choose Import from SillyTavern.
2. Upload the world info file (.json) exported from SillyTavern.

Marginalia creates a new lorebook named after the world info (or after the file) and converts each entry:

Keys become filters. A single plain key becomes a Text filter (dragon). Anything else - several keys, secondary keys (AND ANY, AND ALL, NOT ANY, NOT ALL), keys written as /regex/, case-sensitive or whole-word matching - becomes one Regex filter that does the same. For example, the keys dragon, wyrm with the secondary key fire (AND ANY) become:

(?s)^(?=.*(?:\Qdragon\E|\Qwyrm\E))(?=.*(?:\Qfire\E))

You don't need to read these expressions; edit them only if you know regular expressions.

What works differently

SillyTavern settings without a Marginalia counterpart are listed in the entry's Note, for example Imported from SillyTavern, not supported: probability 50%, inclusion group "weather". These are:

• probability, inclusion groups, sticky, cooldown and delay - the entry is simply active whenever it matches;
• insertion at depth - the entry goes before the user prompt instead.

The biggest difference is what the keys are matched against. SillyTavern scans the recent chat. Marginalia matches the request for the part being written - its scene, characters and instructions - and an imported entry starts with exactly that (its Activation Context is Instructions), so an entry that SillyTavern activated because a name came up in the last messages is activated in Marginalia only when you mention the name in the turn. To get what SillyTavern does, set the Activation Context of the entry to Instructions and parts of the story and Parts to the number of the newest parts to look into, see Looking into the story. Recursive activation (entries activating other entries) is not set by the import either: switch it on with the scan depth of the lorebook, see Entries brought in by other entries.

After importing, look through the entries and decide which should be always active, which keep their filters, and which are better handled with tags.