Whiteboards and Canva
An infinite canvas for sketches, diagrams and ideas that do not fit in a list, and a place to keep the Canva designs you already have.
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Some thinking is not a list. A system diagram, a seating plan, the shape of an argument, the room you are about to rearrange. Whiteboards are for that.
Draw on the canvas#
The canvas is Excalidraw: shapes, arrows, freehand, text, images and frames, drawn in its rough, hand-drawn style. The rough look is deliberate. People edit a diagram that looks provisional, and they defend one that looks finished.
- Light or dark canvas. Each board keeps its own, whichever theme the app is in. The switch is in the board's top bar.
- Your shape library is kept. Add a selection to the library and it is still there tomorrow, on every board you open from that workspace, including boards other people have shared with you.
- Public shape collections. Browse libraries opens the public Excalidraw collections inside the app, searchable, and adds the one you pick.
- Thumbnails. The whiteboard list shows each board's drawing, so you can find one by its shape rather than its name.
- Draw over a picture. On a card, Annotate in a whiteboard beside an attached picture opens a new board with the picture already on it. See Files and scans.
Get a board out, or share it#
Excalidraw's export saves a board as a PNG or SVG image, or as an
.excalidraw file you can open elsewhere.
To show a board to someone without handing over the workspace, use Share in the top bar and pick the people. It works the way sharing a note does, and only the board's owner sees the button. See Sharing and permissions.
A board can also go in your Vault. While it is sealed, opening it shows the unlock panel, and the canvas and title stay hidden until you unlock.
When a board changes while you have it open#
An open board does not redraw itself when something else writes to it, whether that is the assistant, an agent over MCP, or you on another device. Close it and open it again. On open, the app asks the server for the latest version and adopts it if it is newer than your copy, so the other change is not lost under yours.
On a phone or tablet, sync also pauses while a board is open, which keeps drawing smooth on modest hardware. Your strokes are saved on the device as you go and upload when you close the board.
Canva designs on a whiteboard#
If your visual work already lives in Canva, you can put a design's pages on a whiteboard and draw around them. You keep editing the design in Canva.
On a computer, press Canva (with Canva's logo) in the board's top bar. In a phone's browser, open the board's menu (the three dots) and pick Bring in a Canva design. The dialog offers three ways in:
| Way in | What lands on the board |
|---|---|
| Upload a PDF or image | Every page, from an export up to 50 MB. The pages and text are read in your browser, so this always works |
| Paste link | The cover and title are kept with the board. Nothing is placed on the canvas until the pages arrive, and the dialog says so |
| Your Canva designs | With a connected Canva account, pick or search your own designs and Canva renders every page at full quality |
A pasted link becomes pages on the canvas with Render from Canva, once your account is connected. Designs you bring in also sit in their own section of the Whiteboards page, where you can place one on another board.
Connecting your Canva account, the design detail view (open in Canva, refresh, download a PDF) and what the connection can and cannot do are in Integrations.
What your plan includes#
- Whiteboards: on every plan. Free holds 3 per workspace; the paid plans do not count them.
- The Canva design hub: a paid capability, off on Free.
- Sharing one whiteboard with a person: needs a Family or Team plan.
The full table is in Plans and limits.