# 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.

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](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans).

> **Note: Nothing wipes a board in one gesture** Excalidraw's own "Reset the canvas" and "Open" are switched off. Deleting a
> board takes two presses of Delete in the top bar, and the second one says
> **Delete?** first.

## 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](https://themarginapp.com/docs/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.

> **Tip: Before deciding the agent ignored you** If you asked the assistant to add something to a board that is open in front
> of you, close the board and reopen it.

> **For agents:** The assistant and MCP clients can create a whiteboard, add shapes and text
> to one (`add_whiteboard_elements`), place Canva pages on it and export it as
> a PNG. Importing a Canva link (`import_canva_design`) gets the full pages when
> the person has connected their Canva account, and says how to get them when
> they have not. They can also look at a board as a picture, when the model behind
> them can read images.

## 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](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations#canva).

> **On the phone:** The phone app draws whiteboards with a finger and opens them the same way,
> taking any newer version first. The tool rail opens the shape library: your
> kept shapes and the public libraries, previewed before you place one. An open
> picture on a card or note has **Annotate**, which starts a whiteboard with the
> picture already on it. A board you draw on gets a fresh gallery picture once
> you pause. Canva designs are not in the phone app yet;
> open the board in your phone's browser or the installed web app and use
> **Bring in a Canva design** from its menu.

## 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](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits).

**Where to next**

- [Notes](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes): where the words around a diagram usually go
- [Integrations](https://themarginapp.com/docs/integrations): Canva and the other outside services
- [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits): what each plan holds


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Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 5, 2026.
Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/whiteboards-and-canvases. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt