How to Use Obsidian Canvas, and When Excalidraw or the Graph Fits Better

Obsidian Canvas is the infinite board built into Obsidian. You drop notes, images, PDFs, web pages, bases and folders onto it, then connect them with arrows you can label and color. Each board is saved as a .canvas file in the open JSON Canvas format, so your layouts stay readable outside the app. Below: setup, every card type, five layouts to copy, the file format, and when Excalidraw or the graph view fits better.

What Obsidian Canvas is

Canvas is a core plugin: the Obsidian team builds it, and it comes with the app at no extra cost. It arrived in Obsidian 1.1 in December 2022 and works on desktop and mobile. A board holds cards: notes and other files from your vault, text cards that exist only on the board, and live web pages. Note cards are live, so editing one on the board edits the note.

The board is a file too: link to it with [[Project.canvas]], embed it in a note or drop it onto another board. It is often confused with three other visual tools:

Create your first canvas

If the ribbon has no Create new canvas button, turn the plugin on under Settings → Core plugins → Canvas. Then:

1. Create a board. Click Create new canvas in the ribbon or run Canvas: Create new canvas from the command palette (Ctrl+P, or Cmd+P on macOS); the board lands in the folder of the open file. To pick the folder, right-click it in the File explorer and select New canvas.
2. Name it like any note. There is no Save button: Obsidian writes changes to the file as you work.
3. Add a text card by double-clicking an empty spot. It takes Markdown, links and code blocks.
4. Add a note by dragging it from the File explorer, or right-click the board and select Add note from vault.
5. Connect them. Hover over a card’s edge until a filled circle appears, then drag it to the other card. Double-click the line to label it.

Keep boards in one folder, such as Boards/. It helps later, when you filter the graph.

Everything you can put on a canvas

The file format knows four kinds of cards, text, file, link and group, and in the app that covers a lot:

Notes and text cards

To show part of a long note, right-click its card and choose Narrow to heading… or Narrow to block…; Swap file puts another note on the card. Since Obsidian 1.9 you can edit a note’s properties inside its card.

Text cards suit thoughts that aren’t notes yet. When one is worth keeping, right-click it, choose Convert to file…, name the note and select Save. Do this before you rely on its links: Obsidian’s help notes that text-only cards don’t appear in Backlinks. Search finds their text, but a [[link]] in a text card doesn’t count as a link.

Images, PDFs and web pages

PDF and note cards scroll once you select them, so a board works for reading a paper next to your notes on it. A web page card holds a working website. Ctrl-click its label (Cmd-click on macOS) to open it in your browser; right-click for Copy URL, Change URL… and Reload page. Use them for what you keep checking: a staging site, a dashboard, a docs page.

Bases and folders

Bases, a core plugin since Obsidian 1.9, show notes as tables, cards, lists and, since 1.14, kanban boards. Drop a .base file on a board and the card shows its default view; right-click → Pin view… picks another, and Show default view goes back. Dropping a folder adds every file in it as a card, which is the quickest start for a research board. Tidy the new cards with Align.

Connect, label and group cards

Lines. Drag from the circle on a card’s edge to another card. Let go over empty space and Obsidian offers to create a card at the end of the line, the fastest way to grow a map. A line points to the second card; Line direction switches it to Nondirectional or Bidirectional. Double-click a line to label it, and use Set color on lines and cards. Labels turn a picture into an argument: reuse a few verbs, such as “supports” and “contradicts”, and give each color one meaning. On a big board, right-click near a line’s end and choose Follow connection to jump to the other card.

Groups. Select cards, right-click and choose Create group; double-click the name to rename it. Moving a group moves its cards. Set background puts an image behind a group (Cover, Keep aspect ratio or Repeat), and Canvas: Jump to group finds a group by name.

Arranging. Select two or more cards and open Align in the selection controls. It lines cards up, places them with Arrange in a row, Arrange in a column or Arrange in a grid, spaces them evenly and matches their size. Snap to grid, Snap to objects and Read-only are in Canvas settings, the cog above the controls on the right. Read-only protects a finished board from stray drags.

Canvas help, below the controls on desktop, lists the shortcuts. On a phone or tablet, drag to pan, pinch to zoom, and touch and hold an empty spot for a menu with Add card, Add note from vault, Add web page and Create group.

Five canvas layouts to copy

Each layout is a starting point for a real job. One habit helps with all of them: write the question the board should answer in a text card at the top left.

Research map

For a literature review, a market scan or a decision: sources on the left, their claims in the middle, your conclusions on the right.

1. Create Boards/Pricing research.canvas and drag the folder of source notes onto it. Select the new cards and choose Align → Arrange in a column.
2. Write each claim as a text card in the middle. Connect sources to claims and label the lines “supports”, “contradicts” or “raises”.
3. Color lines green for support and red for contradiction; put loose ends in an “Open questions” group.
4. When a claim holds up, use Convert to file… on it and write the links to its sources into the new note.

Project board

For a project with tasks and documents: the tasks live in a base, and the board puts them next to the work.

1. Create a base for the project’s task notes and add a kanban view grouped by status. Kanban views need Obsidian 1.14 or later.
2. Drag the .base file onto a new board, right-click the card, choose Pin view… and select the kanban view.
3. Add the brief, meeting notes, the spec and the staging site around it, in groups named “Now”, “Next” and “Done”.
4. Link the board from the project note with [[Website.canvas]].

Mind map

For brainstorming. Start with text cards: most branches are too small to be notes yet.

1. Double-click the middle of an empty board and type the topic.
2. Drag a line from its edge into empty space and add a card from the menu that appears. Repeat for branches, then for sub-branches.
3. For lines without arrowheads, set Line direction to Nondirectional. Tidy each branch with Align → Arrange in a column.
4. Use Convert to file… on branches that grow into ideas of their own.

Canvas has no automatic mind-map layout; the plugins in the mind map section add one.

Topic hub

A map of content, or MOC, is a note that lists the notes on one subject; our graph view guide explains how it works as a hub. A board can also show how those notes relate.

1. Put the MOC in the center, narrowed to its list with Narrow to heading… if it is long.
2. Drag the notes it links to around it and group them by subtopic.
3. Draw a line only where you can name the relationship.
4. Write each relationship back into the MOC as a link with a sentence. Search, backlinks and the graph read the note, not the board.

Zettelkasten cluster

In a Zettelkasten, a structure note puts permanent notes into an order you can write from. A board is a good place to find that order first.

1. Drag the structure note and its permanent notes onto a board, each narrowed to one heading so the cards stay small.
2. Arrange them left to right in the order you would explain the idea.
3. Label each line with the reason two notes belong together, such as “contradicts” or “example of”. Add a text card for each gap: a note you still need to write.
4. Update the structure note so its list follows the board.

The .canvas file: JSON Canvas explained

Obsidian published the .canvas specification with the first release of Canvas. On March 11, 2024, the format got a name, JSON Canvas, and its own site, jsoncanvas.org: specification 1.0, MIT license, free for any app to import, export or store.

A file has two lists: nodes, the cards, and edges, the lines. Here is a board with one note, one text card and a labeled arrow between them:

{
  "nodes": [
    {
      "id": "a1",
      "type": "file",
      "file": "Notes/Exports signal missing trust.md",
      "x": 0, "y": 0, "width": 400, "height": 300
    },
    {
      "id": "b2",
      "type": "text",
      "text": "Does this hold for **calendar sync**?",
      "x": 520, "y": 90, "width": 300, "height": 120,
      "color": "3"
    }
  ],
  "edges": [
    {
      "id": "e1",
      "fromNode": "a1", "fromSide": "right",
      "toNode": "b2", "toSide": "left",
      "label": "raises"
    }
  ]
}

Every node has an id, a type (text, file, link or group), a position and a size in pixels. Obsidian writes 16-character IDs, but any unique string is valid. A file node stores the file’s path, plus an optional subpath such as #Heading for a narrowed card. An edge names the two nodes it connects and can set the sides, the arrowheads, a label and a color: a hex code or a preset from "1" to "6" (red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, purple) that each app shades to fit its theme.

• Your layout outlives the app. It is plain text you can read and back up, and Obsidian saves it across many lines, so git shows readable diffs.
• Other tools read it. Kinopio has imported and exported JSON Canvas since March 2024, and the official list of apps and tools adds more apps, a converter to Mermaid, and libraries for Python, TypeScript, Go, Rust and other languages.
• Your notes stay separate. A file card stores only a path. Move a board without its files, and those cards point nowhere.

In graph terms, a canvas is a small graph you draw by hand: cards are nodes, lines are edges, and a labeled line is a named relationship. That is the same model a knowledge graph uses, at the scale of one board.

Let an agent build the canvas

A board is plain JSON, so an AI agent with access to your vault can write one. Claude Code, Codex and other agents do it more reliably with the json-canvas skill from kepano/obsidian-skills, the set maintained by Obsidian’s CEO Steph Ango. The skill teaches the agent the specification and has it check its work: unique IDs, cards that don’t overlap, and no lines pointing to missing cards. How to install it in each agent is in our Claude and Obsidian guide.

Use the json-canvas skill. Create Boards/Pricing.canvas from the notes
in Notes/Pricing/: one file card per note, grouped by subfolder. Add an
arrow for every [[link]] between these notes and label it with the
phrase around the link. Don't edit any .md files.

Commit the vault to git first. The reverse request is often more useful: ask the agent to list the arrows on a board you arranged by hand that connect notes with no link between them yet. You get link suggestions to approve one at a time.

Excalidraw in Obsidian

Excalidraw is a community plugin by Zsolt Viczián that brings the open-source Excalidraw whiteboard, with its hand-drawn look, into your vault. It has about 8.7 million downloads in Obsidian’s plugin directory; version 2.29.0 came out on October 12, 2026. It runs on desktop and mobile and needs Obsidian 1.8.7 or later.

Install it under Settings → Community plugins: turn off Restricted mode, select Browse, find Excalidraw, then choose Install and Enable. The Excalidraw icon in the ribbon starts a drawing. What you get:

• Drawing: freehand lines, shapes, arrows, frames and, since version 2.28, sticky notes.
• Links: according to the plugin’s README, [[wikilinks]] in a drawing’s text show up in the backlinks of the notes they point to, and drawings appear in graph view.
• Embeds both ways: hold Shift while you drop a note onto a drawing to embed the whole note, or embed a drawing in a note like an image, ![[Architecture.excalidraw|600]]. The plugin can also save a PNG or SVG copy each time a drawing is saved.
• Extras: LaTeX formulas, a script library (rebuilt as a Community Script Store in 2.28) and, since 2.29, a command line for local AI agents, which needs Obsidian 1.12.2 or later with the CLI turned on. Run Excalidraw: Show CLI and agent instructions to start.

Since version 1.2.0, each drawing is a Markdown file, usually named Something.excalidraw.md, with front matter, the drawing’s text and links, and the scene data. That is why drawings work with search, backlinks and the graph. Other Excalidraw editors need a plain .excalidraw copy, which the plugin’s compatibility settings can keep in sync.

The same author makes ExcaliBrain, a navigable map of a note’s parents, children and friends built from links, tags and Dataview fields; it is one of the graph plugins. It needs Dataview and Excalidraw and is maintained (0.2.19, September 29, 2026). Excalidraw 2.28.0 broke compatibility with ExcaliBrain 0.2.18, so update the two together.

Canvas vs Excalidraw

The rule of thumb: Canvas for material that already exists, Excalidraw for drawing something new, such as an architecture diagram or a wireframe. You can also combine them, since a drawing is a file in your vault and can sit on a canvas like any other file.

Mind maps in Obsidian: four ways

Obsidian has no mind-map feature of its own, but four routes work. Pick by where your content starts:

Canvas by hand. Follow the mind map layout above. The Canvas Mindmap plugin adds keyboard control, Tab for a child card and Enter for a sibling, plus automatic layout. It has about 161,000 downloads but no update in two years, so try it on a copy of a board first.

Markmap plugins. These draw a note’s headings and lists with the Markmap library. The best known, Mind Map by lynchjames, has about 902,000 downloads, but its latest release, 1.1.0, dates from December 2020. Mindmap NextGen does the same and is maintained: version 1.17.0 was updated on October 27, 2026. Open it from the command palette; it also draws markmap code blocks in notes.

Excalidraw’s Mindmap Builder. A script from Excalidraw’s library for keyboard-driven maps: shortcuts for siblings and children, automatic layout and styling, folding, and Markdown lists copied in or out. Open a drawing and install Mindmap Builder from the script library.

Mermaid. Obsidian draws Mermaid code blocks, and Mermaid has a mind-map type:

```mermaid
mindmap
  root((Pricing))
    Research
      Competitor prices
      Customer interviews
    Decisions
      Free tier
      Annual discount
```

In Obsidian 1.13 and 1.14, which ship Mermaid 11.13, diagrams are off by default: Obsidian asks once before it draws them in a vault. Version 1.15, in early access since October 22, 2026, draws them with its own library, Pele, and no longer asks. Keeping your notes in Notion instead? Our guide to mind maps in Notion covers the options there.

Canvas vs graph view

Both show dots or cards joined by lines, but they answer different questions. The graph draws the links your notes contain, wherever those notes sit in the vault. A board shows what you chose to put side by side. One is a record; the other is a workspace.

What Obsidian 1.14 counts when notes meet a board:

The board itself has been a regular node in the graph since Obsidian 1.8 (January 2025); before that, it appeared only with Attachments turned on. So a board with 40 notes becomes a hub with 40 lines. If boards crowd the picture, keep them in one folder and hide it with -path:Boards in the graph’s search filter.

To make everything on a board count, Advanced Canvas (about 948,000 downloads, version 7.1.0, GPL-3.0 license) indexes canvas files like notes: links in text cards count, and an optional setting turns an arrow between two note cards into a link from the first note to the second. It also adds flowchart shapes, presentations and SVG export, and needs Obsidian 1.13 or later.

The two tools work best in a loop:

1. Find a cluster in the local graph of a note at depth 2, or in the global graph filtered to one folder.
2. Lay it out on a canvas and label the relationships you notice.
3. Write each relationship into a note as a link with a sentence. The arrow helped you think; the link is what search, backlinks, the graph and AI agents read.
4. Check the graph again: the new links are now part of the network.

Filters, groups and the local graph are covered in our Obsidian graph view guide.

If part of your notes live in Notion, there is no built-in graph view to start from. IVGraph draws a Notion workspace as an interactive 3D graph, with pages as nodes and mentions, backlinks and database relations as lines, and it is free up to 500 nodes. The IVGraph app works only with Notion. For a vault, our free Obsidian Graph Online tool draws notes, links and tags in your browser without uploading them; it reads notes, not canvas boards.

Limits and fixes

• Arrows aren’t links. Write the relationship into the note, or use Advanced Canvas.
• Text cards are invisible to backlinks. Use Convert to file… on any card you want to link to.
• Image export is PNG, on desktop only. Canvas: Export as image offers the full canvas or just the visible part, a zoom level for sharpness, the Obsidian logo (on by default) and Privacy mode, which hides all text. Advanced Canvas adds SVG and transparent backgrounds.
• Embedded boards show shapes only. ![[Plan.canvas]] in a note shows cards and lines without their text. Link to the board when readers need the content.
• Sync keeps the newer copy. Obsidian Sync merges Markdown notes, but canvases follow “last modified wins”: change the same board on two devices before they sync, and the newer version replaces the other. File recovery keeps snapshots of canvases too.
• Big boards ask more of your device. Every note, PDF and web page on a board is a live view. Split large boards by topic and link them from one note.
• Plugins depend on their authors. Check a plugin’s last update date before you build a routine on it.
• You want boards at the center of the app. Whiteboard-first apps such as Heptabase and Scrintal work that way; our roundup of Obsidian alternatives compares the options.

FAQ