The Panda Has Landed — Introducing the All-New MindMeister

The time has come for us to give a very special update to MindMeister — an extensive upgrade with a brand-new look and feel. Introducing: Project Panda! This huge overhaul has seen the creation of an all-new MindMeister: better and more beautiful than ever. In this post, you can sneak a peek at what’s new and find out how you can get the most out of some exciting new features!

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2020. It was updated in November 2021 in order to reflect new updates to the MindMeister Editor. If you’ve never used MindMeister, you might prefer this article for a full introduction to the new editor.

MindMeister is special, not just to us, but to more than 25 million users worldwide. When we launched the world’s first online collaborative mind mapping software, little did we know that we would spark a revolution in the way individuals and teams — in businesses, schools and universities — would work together to develop their ideas. However, after literally millions of maps made and billions of ideas generated, an update was long overdue.

This leads us to a very important update, known in development by a very cute codename: Project Panda. Over an extensive development process, we collected your feedback, feature requests and other wishes and combined them with our own vision for the future of digital mind mapping.

The results of this journey are reflected in the revolutionary look and feel of the all-new MindMeister — Project Panda involved adding dozens of important updates to the way MindMeister looks, works, and interacts with other programs. It’s faster, more reliable and more beautiful than ever before: let’s take a tour!

What’s New in the All-New MindMeister?

Project Panda was been a massive undertaking guided by a clear vision for the map editor: to make MindMeister a more attractive, intuitive place to work and study for everyone. To achieve this, we have worked extensively on the tool’s interface and feature, including a huge collection of exciting upgrades. 

Redesigned Editor Experience

At Meister, we believe in creating attractive, user-friendly tools that help people work beautifully together. Part of this process is constant improvement: while the existing MindMeister was smart and intuitive, Project Panda saw us drill down even further on these ideals to create our slickest, most easy-to-use tool ever.

Our drive for ultimate usability starts in the mind map editor, which has undergone a significant facelift for the update. We’ve removed a fair few buttons and menus to leave more space for your ideas. Most significantly, we’ve substituted the old “pop-out” styling panel for an attractive new Styling Toolbar that you can open directly from the topic you’re working on. This means that you never lose focus on your ideas. Simply select a topic to open a new world, split into four, easy-to-navigate menus:

1. Action Menu: Add connections between ideas, add comments, notes, media and attachments, or convert ideas to tasks.
2. Style Menu. Choose visual options for fonts, topic styles, borders and connecting lines.
3. Icons Menu: Add tintable icons or emojis to any topic.
4. Layout Menu: Set new layouts for your maps, including mind map, org chart and list. You can even use multiple styles on the same page.

The New Editor: In a Nutshell

Our new, improved editor makes MindMeister a more pleasant place to work.

• Cleaner, clearer user experience. Fewer distractions and more space for ideas.
• Intuitive styling toolbar. Customize and style your topics without ever having to look away. 
• Quick access to topic addons. The option to add images, attachments, comments, and notes is now available via the styling toolbar.
• Streamlined feature set. Not all of the classic MindMeister features have been implemented in the current beta version. Some may return over time, but our focus will always remain on your enjoyment and ease-of-use.

Stunning Styles and Themes

The existing version of MindMeister was already a place to make beautiful mind maps: now, that’s even easier. Project Panda has brought MindMeister into an attractive, design-driven era by providing you with countless options to get your thoughts onto the screen from the styling toolbar. However, if you’d rather focus on the ideas, you can use our beautiful rainbow-themes to switch to design perfection in an instant.

Styles and Themes: In a Nutshell

You can now customize your mind maps in the following ways: 

• Customizable line widths, styles and colors. Gain total freedom over the connections between your mind maps’ topics. 
• Attractive border options. Change the ways that individual topics are displayed to make great ideas stand out. 
• Extensive topic personalization. With extensive options for size, style, shape, color and layout, you can add even more of your own personal flair to your mind maps.
• Convenient markdown support. Format your text quickly and easily with standardized markdown commands. Keep those fingers on the keypad!
• Spectacular “rainbow themes.” Looking for an epic design in a hurry? Choose from a selection of brand new themes that transform your maps into works of art in an instant. 

Free Positioning and Multiple Map Layouts 

Mind maps can hold enormous amounts of information, which makes the formatting of your map extremely important. In the all-new MindMeister, we’ve made some important changes that are designed to help you order your ideas more effectively. 

Free positioning for every topic in your mind map was the most-requested feature ever from our users, which is why that’s exactly what we’ve delivered: drag it, drop it, love it. Better still, from freely-positioned topics, you’ll also have the chance to format all child topics as mind maps, org charts, or lists.

In short, these updates make mind mapping with MindMeister more versatile, practical and suitable for the people who use it: you. 

Free Positioning and Layouts: In a Nutshell

With the all-new MindMeister, you can now shape your mind map to improve overview, boost comprehension and structure information appropriately. Here’s how:

• Free positioning for all topics. Move it! Instead of only moving around first-level topics, the new MindMeister editor empowers you to drag and drop any topic to the ideal position. Of course, automatic positioning remains an option. 
• Multiple layouts for topics. You can now customize layouts for the child topics of freely-positioned ideas. Mind maps, org charts and lists — all on the same page!
• Change effortlessly between auto and manual layouts. Snap freely-positioned topics back into line effortlessly with the auto-layout and attach features.

Maximum Flexibility with Outline Mode 

People take notes differently: it’s not uncommon for even the most dedicated mind mappers to use traditional bulleted lists to take meeting minutes, jot down ideas, and more. Precisely because no single tool will be the best one to use all the time, MindMeister aims to give you the best of both worlds. 

Outline mode in the all-new MindMeister aims at unifying different note-taking styles by allowing you to switch effortlessly between them. Instead of manually converting your notes to a mind map, simply paste them into outline mode and let MindMeister do the rest. 

Outline Mode: In a Nutshell

You can toggle between a visual mind map and linear note view at any time:

• Create lists in outline mode. Then, convert the linear format to an attractive mind map. H1/H2/H3 headings will be reflected in the topic hierarchy. 
• Convert mind maps to lists. Especially useful if you’re planning a document with MindMeister, your map map will be shown as an ordered list with your topics as headings and subheadings. 

Distraction-Free Mapping: Focus Mode 

If you use MindMeister to turn your maps into presentations, you’ll probably notice a key difference between the new and classic editors quite quickly: Presentation Mode is no more. Don’t worry – that’s because we’ve replaced it with something even better… Introducing the all-new Focus Mode!

Focus Mode is designed for rapid, distraction-free mapping. The feature allows you to view your mind maps without any other interface elements, making it a good solution for presentations: in many aspects it’s actually better than the existing Presentation Mode, because you can continue editing your mind maps  while you are still presenting, rather than jumping back and forth. 

Focus Mode: In a Nutshell

To activate focus mode, use the key shortcut CTRL/CMD + . or right-click an empty space, followed by Open Focus Mode. Once you’re there:

• Use Focus Mode for Presentations. The feature removes all menus and toolbars from view.
• Continue editing your mind map! You’ll still be able to create, edit and move topics in Focus Mode, making it great for group brainstorming.

Improved MeisterTask Integration 

If you currently use both MindMeister and MeisterTask, you’re just one of a huge number of users who enjoy two beautiful products designed to make work fun. The idea of the integration between our mind mapping and task management tools has always been to facilitate a seamless transition between thoughts and actions.

Use MindMeister to spark your creativity and work out what needs to be done, then switch to MeisterTask to transform your plans into trackable tasks following established project management methodologies. With the all-new MindMeister, that transition is smoother and more powerful than ever before.

MeisterTask Integration: In a Nutshell

We’ve added more granularity to our integration with MeisterTask. Instead of having to connect a map with a project, you can now configure each topic to sync to any MeisterTask project and section. That means that you can use one mind map to assign tasks to multiple projects and colleagues! 

Over to You…

Although we’re very proud of the improvements to the new MindMeister editor, we’re still looking for ways to improve our tool. Here’s how you can have your say on the most important update to MindMeister…ever.

1. If you haven’t done so already, get your panda promo map.
2. Start mapping with MindMeister. If you get stuck on any of the new features, our user guide will help you on your way. 
3. Once you’re ready, click Got Feeback? at the bottom of the editor to have your say.

We’re looking forward to seeing some beautiful maps from our users made using the new editor. Remember, it all starts with an idea!

The World’s Best Mind Mapping Tool, Better!