Notes canvas (whiteboard)

The Notes canvas is a spatial whiteboard for arranging ideas — text cards, embedded notes, source clips, sections, and images on an infinite pan-and-zoom surface.

Freehand sketching lives on Magic notebook notes (kind: magic_notebook), not on the spatial canvas.

Open it from Notes → Whiteboards (/notes/whiteboards) in the side nav, from a paper’s Whiteboards workspace mode, or open a vault note whose kind is Canvas.

Use the Whiteboards menu in the header to switch boards or create a new one.

Start with one question or decision in the center of the board. Place source clips on one side, concepts in the middle, and draft implications on the other; the spatial layout should explain the reasoning path when you return to it later.

Rename a board: double-click the board title in the hub header (wide layout) or in the canvas pane header (narrow layout). The URL slug stays the same.

Add cards

1. Right-click the canvas → Quick text (or press Q) for a lightweight capture you can promote to a full card later.
2. Right-click → Add text card (or use shortcuts) to place a new full text card.
3. Right-click → Add section to create a colored section frame; use Add to section in the card menu to group cards. Ctrl/Cmd+click (Cmd on Mac) or Shift+drag to select multiple cards, then right-click for Create section from selection or press Cmd/Ctrl+G. Section frames grow to fit members; use Remove from section to ungroup. Zoomed-out boards show section titles more prominently.
4. Right-click → Add image… to upload an image card (stored as a board attachment). Select an image for Open, Alt, Caption, Replace, Lock aspect / Unlock aspect, Crop to frame, Reset crop, Reset size, and Remove. You can also paste or drop an image file onto a saved board.
5. Click a card label to edit the title inline.
6. Double-click a text card to edit its body in the side reader pane beside the canvas. Use the formatting toolbar for bold, headings, lists, highlight (including color swatches), code blocks, and checklists. Highlights render on the card face after you close the pane.
7. Drag cards to reposition them; the canvas autosaves. Source PDF thumbnails grow as you resize the card.

Link cards

1. Use the Select / Connect chip (or press C for Connect, V for Select), drag from a card edge handle, or right-click the canvas → Link cards (then click source, then target).
2. Right-click a card → Link from here to start with that card as the source.
3. Press Esc, click empty canvas, or press V to leave Connect mode.

Highlights on the board

Authored highlights (Hl in the card editor, including color swatches) appear on card faces and in the Highlights tool list (canvas overlay; vault Tools → Highlights when a canvas note is open). Click a row to focus that card.

When you drop a card near another card or section frame, Lattuce asks whether to Add to section or Link — nothing is joined without your confirmation.

Embed vault notes

1. Right-click the canvas → Insert note… (or press N).
2. Search and pick a note — it becomes a note card with a live preview.
3. Double-click a card to open a reader pane beside the canvas (text, notes, sources, clips). The board stays visible; use Open in vault or Open full reader for navigation away.

Canvas notes cannot embed other canvas notes in the picker (avoids nested boards).

Source clips

Add clips from source preview or PDF highlights — they appear as clip cards on the board with passage text and a page locator on the face when the clip has page metadata (Clip · p. N). Whole-document source cards can show a PDF page preview that scales with the card.

Place a card with AI

Right-click empty canvas → Place card with AI…. Enter a short prompt, click Propose, then Place to confirm (or Cancel / Escape).

Navigate the board

• Pan: drag the background.
• Zoom: scroll or pinch; use the controls at the bottom-left of the canvas.
• Fit view: bottom-left canvas controls, or right-click the canvas → Fit view.
• Auto-organise: toolbar Auto-organise, or right-click the canvas → Auto-organise cards. Arranges cards into a top-down mind-map tree (linked cards follow connectors; unlinked boards branch from the reading-order root) and pulls distant linked clusters together. Undo restores the previous layout.
• Fit titles: toolbar Fit titles, or right-click the canvas → Fit card titles. Resizes cards so titles use fewer line breaks (Undo restores the previous sizes).
• Untangle links: toolbar Untangle links, or right-click the canvas → Untangle links. Automatically rearranges linked cards so connections are clearer (Undo restores the previous layout).

Keep a board understandable

• Give every card a short title and put detail in the body.
• Use sections for stable groups such as “evidence”, “open questions”, and “draft claims”.
• Link only relationships you can explain; proximity alone is not a relationship.
• Add a source clip or note link to claims that should survive into a paper.
• Run Auto-organise after a large capture, then make the final layout intentional.

Vault vs Whiteboards hub

• Whiteboards hub (/notes/whiteboards) — browse all canvas notes and create New whiteboard.
• Vault (/notes?note=…) — same editor when the note kind is Canvas; use the vault list and tools column (Highlights, Links, Properties, Graph) alongside the board. Vault TipTap notes share the same highlight palette and == / =={color} encoding as whiteboard cards.

Print and share

Canvas notes support print view from the note menu. Shared read-only links render the board layout for viewers without edit controls.

Related: Notes workflows · Notes vault panes · Block references