The online whiteboard, explained
An online whiteboard is a drawing surface in your browser for the things you would otherwise sketch on a wall: a quick flowchart, a system diagram, a mind map, a retrospective with sticky notes, or a page of visual notes. This one is an infinite canvas: there are no page edges, you pan and zoom to make room, and everything stays sharp because shapes are vectors, not pixels. It is free, needs no account and keeps your boards in your own browser.
Shapes, connectors and text
Rectangles, ellipses and diamonds are the building blocks of most diagrams: a rectangle for a step, a diamond for a decision, an ellipse for a start or end. Every shape can hold text, which wraps to fit when you resize it. Connectors are what make a whiteboard useful for diagrams: drop the end of an arrow on a shape and it binds to that shape, so the arrow follows when you move it. Arrows can run straight or in an elbow route, have one, two or no arrowheads, and carry a label such as "yes" or "no".
Sticky notes for workshops and planning
Sticky notes come in six colours and size their text automatically. They are the basis of the team templates: a retrospective (went well, to improve, actions), a Kanban board (to do, doing, done), a weekly planner and a brainstorm. Templates are made of ordinary objects, so you can add columns, recolour notes or delete what you don't need.
Templates included
| Template | Use it for |
|---|
| Retrospective | Looking back on a sprint or project with a team |
| Kanban board | Seeing work move from to do to done |
| Weekly planner | Seven columns for the days of the week |
| SWOT analysis | Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats |
| Eisenhower matrix | Sorting tasks by urgent and important |
| Flowchart | A process with steps, a decision and an end |
| Mind map | A central idea with branches around it |
| Brainstorm | A question surrounded by sticky notes |
| Customer journey | Stages against actions, thoughts and pain points |
Moving around an infinite canvas
Pan by holding Space and dragging, with the hand tool, the middle mouse button, a trackpad scroll or two fingers on a touchscreen. Zoom with Ctrl + scroll, a pinch, or the buttons in the corner; the zoom centres on your pointer. Shift+1 fits the whole board on screen and 0 goes back to 100%. With the grid on, moved objects snap to it; hold Alt to place them freely, and hold Shift while resizing to keep the proportions.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Key | Action | Key | Action |
|---|
| V / H | Select / hand | Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | Undo / redo |
| P / M / E | Pen / highlighter / eraser | Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V | Copy / paste |
| R / O / D | Rectangle / ellipse / diamond | Ctrl+D | Duplicate |
| L / A | Line / arrow | Del | Delete |
| T / N / I | Text / sticky note / image | [ / ] | Send back / bring to front |
| G | Grid on or off | F | Fullscreen |
Images, paste and drag-and-drop
Paste a screenshot with Ctrl+V, drop an image file onto the board or use the image tool. Large images are scaled down to 1600 pixels so boards stay quick to save. Pasting plain text creates a text object, and objects you copy on one board can be pasted onto another.
PNG, SVG or JSON?
Use PNG for documents, slides and chat; the 2× and 3× options keep it crisp on high-resolution screens, and a transparent background lets it sit on any colour. Use SVG when you want a vector file that stays sharp at any size or can be edited in a design tool. The .whiteboard.json file holds the board itself: open it again here, on another computer or in another browser, to keep working. You can also export only the objects you have selected.
Your boards stay in your browser
Boards are saved automatically in your browser's IndexedDB storage, half a second after every change, and you can keep as many as you like and switch between them under Boards. Nothing is uploaded: there is no server copy, so clearing your browser data also removes your boards. Export a JSON file for anything you want to keep safe or move to another device. This is a whiteboard for one person at a time; to share a board, send the image or the JSON file.