To add a new character, first select the character that you wish the new character to be placed after, then click on the "new char" button in the upper-right hand corner of the editor. A blank character will appear in the list. Double-click the blank character to set its name and states. For a state to be useful, you must set a name and at least one character. See the section called “Edit basic character information ("character" tab)” for more information.

When uploading a NEXUS file to create a matrix, all characters and states present in the file are automatically added to the character directory. This is a collateral effect of importing a matrix but can be used to batch add characters and is especially convenient if your data is already in NEXUS format.

Because characters are shared across matrices in a project, you can load a matrix from a NEXUS file, then use the characters from the imported matrix in other matrices created directly in MorphoBank.

For projects that need to consolidate characters from disparate NEXUS format datasets into a single set, using MorphoBank's NEXUS import capability may be a convenient option. Uploading multiple NEXUS files into a single MorphoBank matrix will result in a matrix with a character list that is the sum of those in the constituent files. You can then use MorphoBank's character mangement tools, described below, to edit the list into its final form.