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Import and Export

The .cat archive

A .cat file is a zip of your content as readable YAML plus its images: a campaign, a map or a character. It holds no other user's account details.

Exporting

Export… is on the campaign's page and its card in the campaign list, on each map in the map list and in the Library's map menu, and in each row's menu in the character list (Export as YAML beside it is the older character-only format). The Delete pages offer the same download.

The dialog offers Full quality (original files), the default, with every image exactly as uploaded, or Smaller file (re-encode images), WebP at a lower quality.

The archive carries every file its content points at, and nothing in it refers back to this server. A web page something points at (an item's source, a "see https://…" in a bio) stays a link, listed in the manifest.

What a campaign archive holds

Everything the campaign owns, as readable YAML beside the images:

  • Each map with its tokens and Objects (parts included), drawings and their fill textures, walls (VBL), fog, map layers, running timed effects, and for a generated map its generation record and art.
  • The campaign's definitions: object types, conditions, prop types, attribute groups, property definitions, bars, light source and vision types, damage types, currencies, functions, actions, roll tables, factions, parties, role definitions and art pools.
  • The Treasury and its art, and the wiki with its images.
  • Its characters, as linked today.

Not in it: who is in the campaign (members, invitations, role assignments), chat, and history (map history, the recycle bin, loot sessions). A player's export holds what that player can see.

If a file can't be found, the export stops and names the files and rows. Export anyway, without them leaves those fields out and lists the files as missing in the manifest; Cancel exports nothing.

Why you should

Purple Cat is in alpha. Data loss is unlikely but not impossible, and the Terms are honest about that. If a campaign matters to you, export it after each session. It takes seconds.

Importing

Drop a .cat on the Import page (or use Import a campaign… in the campaign list, Import map… on a campaign's page, or open or share a .cat to the installed app). The page shows what the archive is and holds before anything is imported.

What each kind does:

  • A campaign — Create "" makes a new campaign of your own with everything the archive holds: its maps with their tokens, Objects, drawings, walls, fog and layers; its characters, as yours; the Treasury, definitions, roll tables, factions, parties, art pools and wiki; its roles, with nobody assigned. Importing never merges into an existing campaign, and importing the same archive twice makes two campaigns.
  • A map — Import into… a campaign you can edit. The map arrives with its tokens, drawings, walls, fog and layers; characters its tokens use are created as yours and linked.
  • A character — goes to character import, as it always has.

Every image is copied into your storage and everything gets new ids, so an import never points back where it came from; a taken address gets a number. Nothing is fetched from the web. You may be told the archive needs a system module this server lacks or has older (it imports as is), that it is a player's export (hidden content wasn't in it), or that it is an older archive whose linked images can't be fetched.

Maps export and import as .cat; the older map ZIP is no longer read.

Importing characters from elsewhere

  • From a file — a character export (.cat or YAML).
  • From an image or PDF of a sheet, using AI parsing.

Copying between campaigns

For moving content within Purple Cat, copying is simpler than export/import:

  • Copy a map from another campaign.
  • Link a character into a campaign without moving it.
  • Import a party into a campaign.

Exporting all of your data

To export everything you own rather than one campaign at a time, see Your Data.