How to keep a whiteboard organized

What the canvas does not give you

The canvas is a freeform surface, and it deliberately leaves out the features that make a whiteboard feel structured. There is no grid and no snap-to-grid, so nothing lines itself up. There are no sticky notes and no way to place an image on the canvas.

There are no connector objects either. A line and an arrow exist as shapes you draw, but they are elements like any other, so they do not stay attached to the boxes they appear to join.

None of this is a flaw to work around. It means the canvas is a drawing surface rather than a diagram tool, and the way to keep it readable is to work with a small number of element types and a small number of ideas at a time.

• No grid and no snap-to-grid to align against
• No sticky notes and no image placement
• No connector objects that stay attached to shapes
• No auto-arrange, which exists for mind maps only

Note: The element types are path, erase, rect, ellipse, line, arrow, polygon, star, heart, spiral and text. That short list is the whole vocabulary, which is what makes a small set of them easy to learn.

Pick a small set of element types

There are eight shapes in the shape tool: rectangle, ellipse, hexagon, line, arrow, star, heart and spiral, plus the text tool and four brushes. A canvas that uses three of them reads as a set of decisions, not a collection of shapes.

Choose one shape for each role and stick to it. Rectangles for blocks, arrows for flow, text for labels, and one brush for emphasis. A canvas built from repeated shapes is legible because the reader learns the vocabulary in the first ten seconds.

The other brushes are for drawing rather than for structure. The smooth pen, the calligraphy pen, the web brush and the crayon each have a character, and using all four on one canvas turns a diagram into a sampler.

• One shape per role, repeated everywhere it applies
• Text for the labels, arrows for the flow between them
• One brush for emphasis rather than four for decoration
• Color used to separate regions, not to decorate blocks

Audit the canvas with the layers panel

The layers panel on the right is the closest thing the canvas has to a table of contents. It lists every element, shows a count at the top, and gives each row an eye icon to hide it and a bin to delete it.

That makes it the tool for the moment when a canvas stops making sense. Hide elements one at a time until the drawing reads clearly again, and whatever you hid is either in the way or was never needed. Deleting from the panel is the fast way to clear a mistake, and the undo guide covers getting it back when it was not one.

The panel is also how you find what is missing. If a shape you expected is not in the list, it was never created, and if something is in the list but not on the screen, its eye icon is off. That single check solves most of the disappearing-element puzzles.

1. Open the panel. Click the layers button in the top bar to show the panel on the right, and read the element count at the top of it.
2. Hide what is in the way. Use the eye icon on rows that do not help, and watch the canvas until the drawing reads cleanly without them.
3. Delete what is finished. Use the bin icon to remove an element outright, and undo with Ctrl/Cmd+Z if it turns out to have been load-bearing.

Fit content to view before you share

Fit content to view frames every visible element and the mind map in the viewport at once, which is the fastest way to check what a canvas actually contains. Stray marks at the edge of the world, a shape you left behind, all of it comes into view at once.

It is also the correct view to export from. An export of the fitted view gives you a picture of the canvas with nothing cropped off, and it is the state most people want when they paste a sketch into a document.

The zoom range runs from 0.1 to 5 times, so a canvas that sprawls can still be seen whole. When a canvas is too wide to read at any zoom, the problem is the layout rather than the zoom, and the fix is fewer elements rather than a smaller one.

• Fit content to view frames all visible elements and the mind map
• Exporting the fitted view avoids cropping the edges
• Zoom runs from 0.1 to 5 times
• A canvas too wide to read needs fewer elements, not more zoom

Move structure into a mind map

Some things are structure and some things are pictures, and a canvas is only good at the second. When you are trying to show six steps in a process, a mind map holds them better, because each step is a node with a label and a place in a tree.

Both can live in the same document. Add a mind map with the Mind map button, and the map sits on the canvas next to your drawing, with fit content to view framing the two of them together.

That combination is usually the answer to a canvas that has become unreadable: keep the sketch, move the structure into a map, and let the drawing refer to it. The complete Canvasola guide covers the two editors and the panels around them.

• Steps and sequences belong in a mind map, not in scattered boxes
• A map and a drawing share one document
• Fit content to view frames both together
• The map is searchable, which a canvas is not

Note: The mind map has its own layout modes, a tree and a radial view, and auto-arrange with A. The canvas has no equivalent, because a canvas has no structure to arrange.

Export before the canvas fills up

A document holds up to 5,000 elements, and each element holds up to 50,000 points, with 200,000 points for the whole document. A text element can run to 20,000 characters. Those limits are generous, and they are also the point at which a canvas stops being pleasant to work in.

The exports are PNG, JPG, vector SVG and Print, which sends the canvas to the browser's print dialog. There is no direct PDF export, so a print action is how a canvas becomes a page, and choosing the print destination is up to the browser.

Save the project as well. A .canv project file holds the canvas, the style, the mind map, the App Builder project, the camera and the layout mode, up to 50 MB, and it is the only export you can open again and keep working in. The export and import guides cover every format in full.

• 5,000 elements per document, 200,000 points in total
• PNG, JPG, vector SVG and a browser Print action
• No direct PDF export; the print dialog handles that
• A .canv project file is the only export you can reopen and edit

Note: The offline guide covers how the local autosave protects a canvas between sessions, and the naming guide covers giving exported files names you can find again.

A checklist you can reuse

• The canvas uses a small, repeated set of element types
• The layers panel is open while the canvas is being edited
• Elements that are in the way are hidden or deleted from the panel
• The element count is checked before the canvas feels slow
• Fit content to view is used before the canvas is shared
• Process structure is moved into a mind map on the same canvas
• The canvas is exported to PNG, JPG or SVG before it fills up
• A .canv project file is saved for the work that matters

Common mistakes to avoid

• Waiting for a grid that is not there. There is no grid and no snap-to-grid on the canvas, so alignment has to be done by eye or by using the same shape at the same size. Repetition aligns more reliably than hope does.
• Using every shape in the library. Eight shapes, four brushes and a palette of colors produce a sampler rather than a drawing. Three element types, used consistently, produce something a stranger can read.
• Scrolling a sprawling canvas. A canvas that needs scrolling to be understood has too much on it. Cut the elements that do not earn their place before you look for a better view.
• Building a diagram out of loose arrows. Lines and arrows are shapes, not connectors, so they do not follow the boxes they appear to join. For a real flow, put the steps in a mind map instead.
• Leaving the layers panel closed. The panel lists every element with a count, an eye and a bin, which makes the invisible ones visible. It is the fastest way to find what went missing.

Frequently asked questions

Does Canvasola's canvas have a grid or snap-to-grid?

No. The canvas is a freeform drawing surface with no grid and no snap-to-grid, and there is no auto-arrange for canvas elements either, since auto-arrange belongs to the mind map. Alignment comes from repeating the same shape at the same size.

Can I put sticky notes or images on a canvas?

No. Sticky notes and image placement are not canvas features, and the element types are limited to paths, rects, ellipses, lines, arrows, polygons, stars, hearts, spirals and text. A mind map node, on the other hand, can hold an image or a freehand drawing as its thumbnail.

How do I find an element that has disappeared?

Open the layers panel on the right. It lists every element with a count at the top, and each row has an eye icon to show or hide it and a bin to delete it. An element that is in the list but not on the screen is simply hidden.

How large can a canvas get before it breaks?

A document holds up to 5,000 elements, 200,000 points in total and 50,000 points per element, with 20,000 characters in a text element. The practical limit arrives much earlier than the technical one, and exporting regularly keeps both in check.

This guide is part of the workflow and productivity collection. For the wider product tour, read the complete Canvasola guide, and keep the keyboard shortcut cheat sheet open while you work.