Import a Session From a Photo
You can bring one workout into Durata from a photo, a page of a PDF, or text you paste in. Take a picture of a whiteboard, point the camera at a page in a book, or paste the message your coach sent. Durata reads it and shows you every exercise it found.
One session is the whole of it. A week, a block or a training book comes in a session at a time, because a read that hands back twenty-seven rows is a read nobody checks. Nothing is added to your training until you tap Save, and every row shows the line from your source that produced it. Importing needs Pro and a signed-in account, because the reading happens on our server rather than on your phone.
Last reviewed 2026-09-07 · matches app v1.0.0.85
Starting an import
Go to the Training tab, tap ＋, and choose Import a Session. The sheet offers four ways in: Take a Photo, Choose an Image, PDF File, and Paste Text. Pick the one that matches what you have in front of you.
Under the four is what is left of the month's allowance, so you know where you stand before you spend one.
Photos: one or two, read as one session
Take a Photo keeps the camera open between shots. Shoot, check the picture landed, then shoot the next one if you need it. Choose an Image does the same with a picture or a screenshot already on your phone.
Two photos is the limit, and the two are read together as one session. That covers a workout written across two pages of a notebook, or a whiteboard you had to shoot in halves, rather than two different sessions.
Get the whole session in frame and keep the page flat. Numbers cut off at the edge of a photo come back as a row you have to fill in yourself.
If a picture will not open, you are told so before anything is sent. Take it again rather than sending it: a photo that cannot be opened here cannot be read either.
PDF File: pick one or two pages
A book can run to three hundred pages with the session you want on one of them, so Durata shows you the pages and asks which one before it reads anything. It searches the text of the document first and opens the chooser on the page that looks most like a session, with the reason underneath.
You see that page as a picture, with arrows either side to move through the document. When the session runs over onto the page after, tap Add the next page and both are read together. Two pages is the most one import will read, and only the pages you pick ever leave your phone.
Some PDFs are scans, so there is no text to search. The chooser says so and starts you at the beginning to pick by eye instead.
The unit row on this sheet starts on the unit you train in. Change it if the document is written in the other one.
A very large PDF, over 100MB, is refused before it is opened rather than left to run your phone out of memory. Export the page that holds the session and import that instead.
A password-protected PDF cannot be opened. Remove the password and try again.
A landscape page is shown landscape, at the width of the sheet rather than boxed into a portrait frame, so the table on it is readable. Books that mix the two are handled page by page.
Paste Text
Paste Text takes anything written down: an email from a coach, a forum post, a chat message, text you copied off a website, or a session you type in yourself. It goes through the same read and ends on the same review sheet as a photo.
This is the cheapest way to import and usually the most accurate, because nothing has to be recognised off a picture first. If you can select the text, paste it.
While it reads
Reading takes a few seconds, and longer for a page of a document than for pasted text. The screen that comes up cannot be dismissed, because closing it would not stop the read. It shows a page being swept, with rows resolving behind the sweep. The sweep shows the work happening rather than a percentage, because nothing on the phone knows how far through the read is.
If it is still going after about twelve seconds you get one line saying so. Everything is read twice before you see it, which is what the confidence dots on the next screen are built from.
The review sheet: check it, then save
The name at the top of the sheet is the name the session will be saved under, and it is a field rather than a heading. Tap it and type. A read takes the name from whatever the source called it, which is often a date, a page heading or Day 1, so this is where you make it something you will recognise in Training. Clearing it puts the read's own name back, because a session with no name is not something you can find again.
Every import ends on the review sheet. Each row shows the exercise, the sets that were read, and a coloured dot for how confident the read is. Green means the source stated it and both reads agree. Amber needs a tap to confirm. Red could not be read, and it blocks the save until you fix or remove the row. If nothing in the library matches the name, the row asks you which exercise you meant and offers the closest ones.
Tap a row to open it. The line quoted from your photo or document sits at the top, with the reps and weights below it as boxes you can edit. Change Exercise swaps the match, Remove Row deletes the row, and Looks Right confirms it. Once you edit a row by hand it stops asking to be confirmed, but it stays amber, because green is reserved for what the source itself said.
Prescriptions are saved the way they were written. A percentage stays a percentage: 3x8 at 85% saves as three sets at 85 percent, and Durata works the weight out from your best lift instead of the figure the page assumed. A rep range stays a range, so 3x8-12 keeps both ends. Effort is kept on the scale the source used, RPE or reps in reserve, and is never converted into the other one. A timed hold stays a time.
Set types survive too. A top set with two back-offs under it comes in as a top set and two back-offs rather than three identical sets, a drop set stays a drop set, 4x8+ puts an AMRAP on the last set, and two lifts marked as a pair arrive supersetted.
A sentence that describes one set rather than the whole exercise is kept on that set and shown under the row, for example a back-off at 85% of the working weight written under a table. It is carried across as a tip you will see again while you train. The numbers the table gives stay exactly as the table gives them: a sentence that complicates a set never costs it a weight the source plainly stated.
While any row still needs you, the save button counts them, for example 1 Row Needs You. Tap it and the sheet scrolls back to the top. Below the rows, What could not be read cleanly lists anything the read dropped or could not make sense of, such as a rest column cut off at the edge of a page.
When the source holds a whole week
Paste a whole week and you get the first session of it, with a line at the top of the review sheet saying so and telling you to import the others separately. The same goes for a PDF page with two sessions on it, or a photo of a four-week table.
Nothing is dropped quietly, and nothing is imported that you did not look at. Come back and run the next one when you want it.
What saving gives you
Save for Later saves the session and opens it, so you land on the session you just checked rather than on a list you have to pick it out of. It lives in Training from then on, ready to run on any day. Start Now opens it in the logger instead and you train it there and then.
What you get is a standalone session, so it carries no progression rule. Weights going up week to week belongs to a program, and a program is not what this imports. Save the session, and if you want it to progress, build it into a plan of your own afterwards.
The monthly allowance
Every read costs money on our side, so imports come with a monthly allowance rather than being unlimited: Pro includes 10 imports a month. There is no daily limit. The import sheet shows what is used before you choose a source, the review sheet shows it again after each read, and the allowance resets on the 1st.
A read that comes back with nothing usable does not count. If the source held no session, or every row came back unreadable, the import is handed back and the sheet says That one didn't count. Three of those a month are free; past three they count, because by then the problem is the source rather than the read.
When the source had no session in it you get a No session in there sheet that says what was on the page instead, with Try Another Source beside it, so you can decide whether to point the camera somewhere better.
Pasted text is the cheapest and most accurate read there is. If the session exists as text somewhere, paste it rather than photograph it.
Common questions
Do I need Pro to import a session?
Yes, and you need to be signed in. The reading happens on our server rather than on your phone, so it needs your account, and it is part of Pro. Pro includes 10 imports a month. The Hevy and Strong importers are free and stay free.
Can I import a whole program?
No. One import is one session, so a block or a training book comes in a session at a time, each one checked before it is saved. It keeps every import small enough that you can actually check it, and it keeps the feature affordable enough to include in Pro.
Does it send my whole book?
No. Durata shows you the pages and asks which one to read before anything is sent. Only the page you pick leaves your phone, plus the page after it if you tapped Add the next page. The limit is two pages per import.
Does it understand percentages and RPE?
Yes, and it keeps them as written. 3x8 at 85% saves as three sets at 85 percent rather than a fixed weight, so the load follows your best lift. RPE and reps in reserve are two different scales and each is kept on its own. Neither is converted into the other, and neither is added when the source did not give one.
Does it read back-offs, drop sets and supersets?
Yes. A top set with back-offs under it comes in with those set types on the right sets rather than flattened into one block, a drop set stays a drop set, and two lifts marked as a pair arrive supersetted. 4x8+ puts an AMRAP on the last set.
Can it read handwriting on a whiteboard?
Often, yes. Where it cannot be sure it says so instead of guessing quietly. Those rows arrive amber or red with the line from your photo quoted, so you fix the number on the sheet rather than find out in the gym.
What if it gets a weight or a rep count wrong?
Tap the row and type the right one. The boxes are the sets. An edited row stops asking to be confirmed, but it stays amber, because green is reserved for what the source itself said.
Can I rename the session before I save it?
Yes. The name at the top of the review sheet is a field. Tap it, type the name you want, and that is what lands in Training. You can change it later too, from Session Info inside the session editor.
What happens if there is nothing on the page?
You get a No session in there sheet saying what was there instead, with Try Another Source beside it. That read does not count against your allowance, and the sheet says so.
Will an imported session progress week to week?
No. A standalone session has no next week to progress into, so nothing imported here carries a progression rule. That belongs to a program. Save the session and build it into a plan of your own if you want the weights to climb on their own.
Put it into practice
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