The Canvas

When you open a board, you land on an infinite canvas. The toolbar runs along the top center of the screen. The properties panel appears on the left when you have an element selected or a drawing tool active. Zoom and history controls sit at the bottom left.

The toolbar holds every drawing tool. Click a tool to activate it, or use its keyboard shortcut. After you draw a shape, the toolbar reverts to the Selection tool so you can move it immediately.

Press Q (or click the lock icon at the far left of the toolbar) to keep the current tool active after each draw. Press Q again to turn tool lock off.

Drawing tools

Tool	Shortcut	What it does
Hand	`H`	Pan the canvas by dragging — nothing is created or selected. Hold `Space` to pan temporarily without switching tools.
Selection	`1`	Select, move, and resize elements. Click to select one element; drag to box-select multiple.
Rectangle	`2`	Draw a rectangle by dragging.
Diamond	`3`	Draw a diamond (rotated square) by dragging.
Ellipse	`4`	Draw an ellipse or circle by dragging.
Arrow	`5`	Draw an arrow between two points — or click a series of points to create a jointed arrow, then press `Enter` to finish.
Line	`6`	Draw a straight or jointed line the same way as an arrow.
Draw	`7`	Freehand pencil — draw anything by dragging.
Text	`8`	Click anywhere to place a text box and start typing. Press `Esc` to finish.
Insert image	`9`	Opens a file picker to place an image on the canvas. You can also paste (`⌘V`) or drag and drop an image directly.
Eraser	`0`	Drag across elements to erase them.

More tools (+ button)

Click the + button at the end of the toolbar to reveal additional tools:

Tool	Shortcut	What it does
Frame	`F`	Draw a named container that groups elements visually and in the layers panel.
Laser pointer	`K`	Draw a temporary highlight that fades — useful for pointing things out during a shared session.
Lasso selection	—	Draw a freehand selection boundary to select irregularly placed elements.

Selecting and moving elements

Click an element to select it.
Drag on empty canvas to draw a selection box. By default, elements must be fully inside the box to be selected. Change this to Overlap (partially inside) in Menu → Preferences.
Shift+click to add or remove an element from the current selection.
Click and drag a selected element to move it.
Arrow keys nudge the selection by one unit. Shift + Arrow nudges by a larger step.
Double-click a shape to edit its label; double-click a text element to edit its text.
Press Enter on a selected element to start editing its label or text inline.

Properties panel

When an element (or set of elements) is selected, a panel appears on the left showing controls for every property you can change.

Color

Control	What it changes
Stroke	Outline color of shapes, lines, arrows, and drawn paths.
Background	Fill color of shapes. Set to transparent to remove the fill.

Both pickers offer a row of preset swatches and a custom hex field. You can also pick from recently used colors.

Fill style

When a shape has a non-transparent background, you can choose how it is filled:

Hachure — diagonal hatching lines (default). Alt-click Hachure to switch to Zigzag hatching.
Cross-hatch — intersecting hatching lines.
Solid — flat solid fill.

Stroke width and style

Option	Choices
Stroke width	Thin, Bold, Extra bold
Stroke style	Solid, Dashed, Dotted

Sloppiness

Controls how hand-drawn shapes look — from precise architectural lines to loose cartoonist strokes:

Architect — clean, precise
Artist — slightly uneven
Cartoonist — sketchy and loose

Edges

For rectangles, diamonds, and ellipses: choose Sharp corners or Round corners.

Arrowheads

For arrows, you can set a head style for both the Start and End of the arrow. Options include: none, open arrow, filled triangle, outlined triangle, filled circle, outlined circle, filled diamond, outlined diamond, and bar. An additional set of styles is revealed by clicking ⋯.

You can also switch an arrow between Straight (direct line) and Elbow (right-angle route).

Text properties

When a text element is selected, additional controls appear:

Property	Options
Font family	Hand-drawn, Normal, Code
Font size	Small, Medium, Large, Very large
Text align (horizontal)	Left, Center, Right
Text align (vertical)	Top, Middle, Bottom

Opacity

A slider from 0 to 100 controls transparency. Useful for layering elements.

Layers

Shapes stack in the order they were created. Bring an element in front of or behind others:

Button	Action
Send to back	Move behind all other elements
Send backward	Move behind the element directly below
Bring forward	Move in front of the element directly above
Bring to front	Move in front of all other elements

Align (multi-select)

When two or more elements are selected, the Align controls appear. You can align elements to their left, right, top, or bottom edges, or center them horizontally or vertically. With three or more elements selected, distribute buttons space them evenly.

Actions row

At the bottom of the properties panel, when one or more elements are selected:

Duplicate (⌘D) — copy the selection offset by a small amount.
Delete (Delete / Backspace) — remove the selection.
Link (⌘K) — attach a URL to the selected element (single selection only). Click the element to follow the link.
Group (⌘G) — group multiple elements so they move and resize together.
Ungroup (⌘⇧G) — break a group apart.

Adding images

Three ways to place an image on the canvas:

Insert image tool (9) — click the tool then use the file picker to choose an image.
Paste (⌘V) — copy an image to your clipboard and paste it directly.
Drag and drop — drag an image file from your desktop onto the canvas.

Images are stored with your board. They appear at the point where you placed or dropped them and can be moved, resized, and reordered like any other element.

Erasing

Select the Eraser (0) and drag across any element to remove it. The eraser works by element — dragging across part of a freehand stroke removes the entire stroke.

To delete selected elements instead, press Delete or Backspace.

Undo and redo

Action	Shortcut
Undo	`⌘Z`
Redo	`⌘⇧Z`

The undo/redo buttons also appear at the bottom-left of the canvas. Every change — drawing, moving, styling, deleting — is undoable within your session.

Zooming and panning

Action	How
Zoom in	`⌘=` or the + button (bottom left)
Zoom out	`⌘−` or the − button (bottom left)
Reset zoom	`⌘0` or click the percentage display
Zoom to selection	`Shift+2`
Zoom to fit all	`Shift+1`
Pan	Hold `Space` and drag, or use the Hand tool (`H`)
Scroll	Scroll wheel (vertical pan), Shift+scroll (horizontal pan)

The current zoom level shows as a percentage between the zoom buttons.

If you scroll or pan until all your content is off-screen, a Scroll back to content chip appears at the bottom of the canvas. Click it to re-center the view on your elements without changing the zoom level.

Copy, cut, and paste

Action	Shortcut
Copy	`⌘C`
Cut	`⌘X`
Paste	`⌘V`
Paste in place	`⌘⇧V` — paste at the exact original position
Duplicate	`⌘D` — duplicate in place with a small offset

Copied elements stay in your clipboard across boards. Paste into a different board to move work between them.

Right-click any element (or the canvas) to open a context menu with the most common actions: Copy, Cut, Paste, Paste in place, Duplicate, Delete, Flip horizontal, Flip vertical, and layer-order commands.

Flip

In the context menu or via keyboard shortcut:

Action	Shortcut
Flip horizontal	`⇧H`
Flip vertical	`⇧V`

Hyperlinks

Attach a URL to any single element via ⌘K or the Link button in the properties panel. The element becomes clickable — hold the right modifier key and click to follow the link.

The ≡ button in the top-left corner opens the main menu, which provides:

Open — import a previously exported board file.
Save to… (⌘S) — export the board as a file you can save locally.
Export image… (⌘⇧E) — export the canvas (or selection) as a PNG or SVG.
Command palette (⌘/) — search all available actions by name.
Help (?) — open the keyboard shortcuts reference.
Reset the canvas — clear everything on the board (asks for confirmation).
Preferences — advanced options (see below).
Theme — switch between Light, Dark, and System (follows your OS setting).
Canvas background — choose from five background colors: White, Slate, Blue, Yellow, and Bronze.

Preferences

Open Menu → Preferences for these options:

Preference	What it does
Select on: Wrap / Overlap	Controls whether a drag-to-select box requires elements to be fully inside (Wrap) or just touching (Overlap).
Tool lock (`Q`)	Keep the current tool active after drawing — no auto-return to Selection.
Snap to objects (`Alt+S`)	Snap elements to nearby element edges and centers while dragging.
Toggle grid (`⌘'`)	Show or hide a background grid.
Zen mode (`Alt+Z`)	Hide all panels and controls — just the canvas. Press `Alt+Z` again to restore.
View mode (`Alt+R`)	Lock the canvas so nothing can be edited or drawn.
Canvas & Shape properties (`Alt+/`)	Show a stats panel with exact coordinates, dimensions, and canvas information for selected elements.
Arrow binding	When enabled, arrows snap to the edges of nearby shapes as you draw them.
Snap to midpoints	When enabled, snapping also locks to the midpoints of nearby element edges.

Keyboard shortcuts reference

Press ? anywhere on the canvas to open the full keyboard shortcuts panel. All shortcuts are listed there, grouped by category: Tools, Editing, Selection, History, Style, Arrange, Align, Distribute, Flip & lock, Group, View / Zoom, View options, and Export.

On macOS, ⌘ is the Command key and ⌥ is the Option (Alt) key. On Windows and Linux, ⌘ becomes Ctrl and ⌥ becomes Alt.