Export and save

Export in the top bar turns what is on the board into files. What you get depends on what is selected. A picture or drawing takes anything you select; PDF and PowerPoint take sheets and images, and HTML and Markdown take one sheet.

Picture (PNG)

What is selected as an image, at twice its size for a sharp result. One sheet alone, or several things together as they lie on the board: sheets, notes, shapes, drawings and images. With two or more sheets or images selected, each is a picture of its own, with what lies on top of it, and they download together as a ZIP. A sticker on a clear background stays clear.

Copy as picture

Everything selected together as one picture, put on the clipboard to paste into a chat, a doc or a slide.

Drawing (SVG)

What is selected as a file that stays sharp at any size: shapes, arrows, drawings and text stay lines and words, sheets and images go in as pictures.

Web page (HTML)

The selected sheet as a standalone page that opens in any browser.

Text (Markdown)

The selected sheet's words, with headings and lists, for notes apps and docs.

PDF, one page per sheet or image

Through the browser's print dialog, so a sheet's text stays text and can be searched and copied.

PowerPoint (PPTX)

A 16 by 9 deck, one slide per sheet or image, with each title in the speaker notes. Slide sheets have text, boxes and images you can edit in PowerPoint; other sheets and images go in as pictures.

PowerPoint as pictures

The same deck with each slide as one picture. It is an exact copy, but its text cannot be edited.

All sheets as HTML (ZIP)

Every sheet on the board as its own web page.

For a PDF or a deck, the pages are the sheets and images you selected, including those in a selected frame or group, and nothing else. In a PDF, each image is a page of its own size; in PowerPoint, it fits inside a 16 by 9 slide. With nothing selected, they are the board's slides, or else its A4 pages, or else every sheet. They go in reading order. Ask the AI for something "in pages" or "to print", such as a CV or a letter, and it makes one A4 sheet per page, so the PDF comes out as A4 pages.

Whatever lies on top of a sheet or image and overlaps it, such as a sticker, a note or a drawing on a slide, is drawn over that page or slide. With a selection, only what is selected counts; with nothing selected, anything on the board.

PNG and the pictures in a PowerPoint deck are drawn from the sheet inside its frame. They are close to what the browser shows, but not always identical to it. PDF uses the browser's own engine.

PowerPoint (PPTX) rebuilds each slide from PowerPoint's own parts, placed where the browser drew them. Text becomes text boxes with its font, size, weight, color, spacing, bullets, numbering and links. Boxes, backgrounds, borders and rounded corners become shapes, and photos become pictures you can crop or replace. Anything PowerPoint cannot draw itself, such as a chart, an SVG drawing, a gradient or a turned or blurred part, goes in as a picture of that part in the same place, so the slide still looks the same.

Lines break where they broke on the board, so a line holds the same words in PowerPoint. When you rewrite a paragraph, delete those line breaks to let it flow again; PowerPoint shows them as ↵ once you turn on formatting marks. Text boxes grow downward as you type.

Fonts from Google Fonts go inside the file, so PowerPoint shows them on a computer that does not have them installed. That works in PowerPoint for Windows, PowerPoint for Mac 16.17 or later, and PowerPoint on the web. Google Slides and Keynote ignore fonts inside a file. Google Slides has every Google font by name, and Keynote uses the font if it is installed. Text in the browser's system font becomes Arial, or Segoe UI on Windows, serif text becomes Times New Roman, and code becomes Courier New, or Consolas on Windows.

Sheets that are not slides, such as A4 pages, go in as pictures, as does a slide that cannot be read in time. Use PowerPoint as pictures when the deck has to look exactly like the board and nobody needs to change it.

Save to file writes the whole board, with its images and documents, into one .canvachat file. It is yours to keep, send or back up. Conversations are not included.

Open file brings a .canvachat file back. It replaces what is on the board now, in one step that undo takes back, and takes the file's title if you may rename the board.

Excalidraw file writes the whole board as an .excalidraw file that opens on excalidraw.com. Shapes, notes, text, arrows, drawings and frames stay editable there, with their colors, fonts and heads; arrows stay attached. Sheets and images go in as pictures. Excalidraw has no triangle, star or speech bubble, so those become lines around the same outline, with their words on top.

Drop an .excalidraw or .tldr file onto a board, or paste shapes copied in Excalidraw, and they come in as Flett shapes, arrows, text and notes you can keep editing. Each tldraw page lands in a frame named after it. Anything with no match is left out, and a message says how much.

Copy a selection on one board and paste it on another. Frames bring what is inside them, groups come whole, and images and documents are copied across so everyone on the new board sees them. See Drawing tools for the rest of editing.