Whiteboard
Tools and elements
Sticky notes, shapes, text, arrows and images, and what you can do with a selection.
You draw on a whiteboard with the tool bar on the left of the canvas, and you change what you selected with the bar that appears under the selection. Everyone on the board has these tools, guests included, except an observer of the team and, while the board is locked, everyone but the facilitator.
The tool bar
From top to bottom:
| Tool | Key | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Selection | V |
Selects and moves elements. Drag across an empty area to select several. |
| Hand | H |
Moves the view. |
| Sticky note | N |
Adds a note in one of eight colours. |
| Shape | R |
Draws a Rectangle, a Diamond or an Ellipse, filled with one of the eight colours. |
| Connector | C |
Draws an Arrow or a Line. |
| Text | T |
Click on the board, then type. |
| Pencil | P |
Draws freehand. |
| Eraser | E |
Removes elements. |
| Frame | F |
Draws a frame, an outlined area that holds the elements placed in it. |
| Image | none | Adds a picture from your device. |
The last button, More tools, holds:
- Laser pointer (
K), which leaves a short trail on your own screen and draws nothing on the board. - Keep the tool (
Q), which keeps the current tool selected after you used it. - Pen mode, listed once the board has seen a pen.
The letter keys work while single-key shortcuts are on; see Keyboard shortcuts.
At the bottom left of the canvas, Undo and Redo act on your own changes.
On a phone, the tools are in a shorter bar at the bottom of the screen, without Connector and Frame.
Add a sticky note
- Select Sticky note. A bar of eight colours opens: Sun, Apricot, Coral, Plum, Iris, Sky, Lagoon and Moss.
- Select a colour: a note of that colour is added in the middle of the view. Or click on the board: a note of the current colour is placed there.
- Double-click the note and type. Click elsewhere when you are done.
After a note is added, the board goes back to the Selection tool, unless Keep the tool is on.
Change a selection
Select one element, or several, and a bar appears under the selection. A label on the corner of the selection counts what it holds, for example “3 elements”.
From left to right:
- The eight colours, when the selection holds a sticky note, a rectangle, a diamond or an ellipse. Selecting one fills those elements with it.
- Group, when you selected two elements or more, or Ungroup, when you selected one group.
- Align, when you selected two elements or more: Align left, Align right, Align top and Align bottom, and, from three elements, Distribute horizontally and Distribute vertically.
- Lock, for the facilitator only.
- Styles, which opens a panel of style options for the selection beside the tool bar.
- Delete.
With a single element selected, the bar has the colours (for a filled element), Lock (for the facilitator), Styles and Delete.
Locked elements
An element the facilitator locked carries a small lock on its corner and cannot be moved, changed or deleted by anyone else. Click it to see Locked and an Unlock button, which only works for the facilitator; the others read “Only the facilitator can change a locked element.” The facilitator can also select Unlock everything in the board menu.
Add an image
Select Image and choose a file. A board takes PNG, JPEG, WebP and GIF images of up to 5 MB each, and 100 MB of images in all. Files of another kind cannot be added.
Other commands and limits
The board menu (the Board menu button, marked …) also has Find on canvas, Canvas help, Clear canvas, which removes what is on the board, for everyone, after a confirmation, and Canvas background, which changes the colour of the paper on your own screen: Paper, White, Light grey, Light blue, Light yellow or Light beige.
A board holds up to 5,000 elements. Past that, a new element is refused with “This board is full.”