Visual Space manual, Live Apps, Build A Visual Plan
Use this walkthrough to turn an empty Whiteboard into a compact visual plan that another person can understand at a glance. You will create a clear title, decisions, tasks, a connected flow, and freehand review marks, then reorganize the result and reopen the board to confirm that the working canvas returned.
Use this walkthrough to turn an empty Whiteboard into a compact visual plan that another person can understand at a glance. You will create a clear title, decisions, tasks, a connected flow, and freehand review marks, then reorganize the result and reopen the board to confirm that the working canvas returned.
Before You Start
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Open an editable board - Use a new or empty Whiteboard in the space area where the plan belongs. You must be signed in, belong to the space and any private area, and have Whiteboard editing access. An existing board can open read-only when you do not have editing access, but its authoring tools will not be available.
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Choose a small planning outcome - Prepare one question or project to map, such as Product launch. For this walkthrough, use three stages—Draft, Review, and Approved?—plus one risk note and a short task list.
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Decide what should be most visible - Put the outcome or question at the top, the flow in the center, supporting notes beside it, and tasks near the stage they advance. This simple hierarchy will make later selection and ordering choices easier.
Whiteboards are large freeform canvases, but the plan does not need to be large. Start with one readable cluster and expand only when the relationships are clear.
Set Up a Comfortable View
Start by locating the tool rail, navigation controls, and personal history before placing the first object.
Learn the movement controls before placing content so you can recover your working area without dragging objects by mistake. Viewport movement changes only what you are looking at, not the plan itself, so use it freely as the board grows.
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Pan to a clear region - Choose Navigate, then Pan canvas, and drag the board until there is open space around the center. With a keyboard, you can hold Space temporarily while dragging instead of changing tools.
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Choose a useful scale - Use Zoom in / out, a wheel or trackpad, or the visible zoom control. Keep the planned cluster large enough to read while leaving room for the flow and its notes.
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Recover your bearings - Choose Center view whenever the working area becomes hard to find. It returns the canvas to its initial centered 100% view; it does not move or resize any objects.
Establish the Plan With Text, a Note, and Tasks
Begin with language before diagramming. The words establish what the shapes will mean, while the note and todo list separate a concern from executable work.
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Add the title - Open the Text tools, choose Text, and place a block above the intended flow. Enter Product launch, then finish the edit. Select the title and use its contextual controls to increase the font size or apply bold, italic, underline, or text color where those choices improve the hierarchy.
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Create a visible concern - Choose Post-it, place it beside the future Review stage, and enter Review risks. With the note selected, choose a different note Color so the concern remains distinct from the process shapes.
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Add the next actions - Choose Todo list, place it near the flow, and enter Approve copy and Book demo on separate lines. Finish editing, then use one checkbox directly on the canvas when that action is complete.
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Refine without rebuilding - Select a text-style object when its content or appearance needs another pass. Use the visible handles to give longer text enough room rather than shrinking it until it is hard to scan.
When editing text with a keyboard, Command/Ctrl+Enter submits the current edit and Escape cancels it. Use these only while the text editor is active; ordinary board shortcuts resume after editing ends.
Build a Connected Decision Flow
Now give the plan a visual reading order. Shapes should represent stages or decisions, while connectors should carry the direction between them.
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Place the process stages - Open Shapes and create a Rectangle for Draft, an Ellipse for Review, and a Diamond for Approved?. Arrange them from left to right with enough space between them for connectors and labels.
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Make the decision look intentional - Select each shape and adjust its fill, border color, or stroke thickness from the contextual style controls. Use stronger contrast for Approved? if that is the point where the plan branches.
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Connect the first relationship - Choose Connector and draw from an edge of Draft to an edge of Review. Start and finish near the shapes' perimeter attachment points so the endpoints snap to the objects instead of remaining loose on the canvas.
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Connect the decision - Add another connector from Review to Approved?. Choose an elbow or curved route according to the available space, then use solid or dotted stroke and start or end arrows to communicate direction or uncertainty.
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Check the attachment - Switch to Select, move Review, and confirm that both connected paths continue to meet it. Resize the shape and check again. If a connection should stop following its target, select the connector and use Unlink connector, then position the independent endpoint where it belongs.
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Add a standalone relationship only when useful - Use Line or Arrow for a divider, pointer, or relationship that should not track two objects. Give it a visibly different stroke only when readers need to distinguish it from the main process.
Attached connectors are the maintainable choice for a flow that will be rearranged. A line that merely appears to touch a shape can be left behind when that shape moves.
Add Freehand Review Marks
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Circle the main outcome - Open Draw, choose Pen, select a color and thickness, and draw one deliberate loop or underline around Product launch.
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Emphasize the review point - Choose Highlighter, select a different thickness or color, and make one translucent stroke across or beside the Review stage without covering its label.
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Remove only the disposable mark - Choose Eraser and pass over an unwanted freehand stroke. Keep the gesture away from nearby plan objects because the eraser can remove supported board elements it intersects, not only paint pixels from a stroke.
Use drawing as a light annotation layer, not as a substitute for the structured plan. The result should still read clearly without the markup. Pen and highlighter marks work best as review emphasis that can change as the planning conversation moves on.
Select and Reorganize the Plan
Use selection to turn the separate pieces into one balanced cluster. The current tool can select one item, create a rectangular selection, or switch to a freeform lasso for irregular groups.
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Adjust one object - Choose Select, select a shape, and drag it to improve spacing. Resize it with the visible handles so its label remains readable. Hold Shift while resizing when you want to preserve the object's proportions.
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Gather a rectangular group - With Select, drag a marquee around adjacent objects. Hold Shift while making another marquee if you need to add more objects to the current selection.
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Gather an irregular group - Open the Select group and choose Lasso select, then draw around the note, todo list, or a staggered part of the flow. Move the resulting selection as a group and confirm that its text and connector relationships remain intact.
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Resolve overlaps - Secondary-click a selected object and use Move up, Move down, Move to top, or Move to bottom. Arrange the title and labels above decorative marks, and keep fills from hiding connectors or tasks.
Selection should improve the reading path, not merely make the cluster compact. Leave visible space between the title, the process, the decision, and the task area so collaborators can add context later.
Reuse and Reverse Changes Safely
Clipboard and history actions make experimentation inexpensive. Try them on a small supporting object before using them on the central flow.
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Duplicate a reusable element - Select the post-it or one shape, secondary-click it, and choose Duplicate. Move the offset copy to its intended location and change its content or style so it does not look like an accidental repeat.
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Copy and paste deliberately - Select an object or group, use the standard Command/Ctrl+C and Command/Ctrl+V shortcuts, then move the pasted copy out of the original's way. Pasted objects receive their own identities and a small positional offset.
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Move rather than copy when needed - Use Command/Ctrl+X and Command/Ctrl+V when an object belongs elsewhere and the original should not remain. Check attached connectors after moving a copied or cut part of the flow and reconnect relationships that now mean something different.
Undo and redo are designed around your own recent board gestures. On a shared board, coordinate visibly when the group is editing the same cluster rather than treating history as a way to remove another person's work.
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Undo one meaningful gesture - Move the selected group once, then choose Undo in the board header. The entire drag should reverse as one step rather than replaying every pointer movement.
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Redo after checking the earlier state - Choose Redo to restore the move. Command/Ctrl+Z and Command/Ctrl+Shift+Z provide the same quick correction on a keyboard; Command/Ctrl+Y is also supported for redo.
Review the Reading Order
Pause before leaving and read the plan as if you had not built it.
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Scan from outcome to action - Confirm that Product launch leads into Draft, Review, and Approved?, and that arrows or connector routes communicate the intended direction.
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Check supporting meaning - Make sure Review risks looks like a concern rather than another stage, and that the todo list sits near the work it advances.
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Inspect connection behavior - Move one connected shape a short distance and confirm that attached endpoints follow it. Undo the check if the original placement was clearer.
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Return to an overview - Pan or zoom until the complete cluster fits comfortably, or choose Center view and navigate back to it. Remember that a later PNG export captures the current visible viewport, so a clean overview is also a useful starting point for the sharing workflow.
Leave, Reopen, and Verify the Board
Whiteboard content is meant to return as editable board objects, not only as a picture. Reopening is the clearest practical confirmation that the plan persisted.
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Finish the last edit - Submit any active text editor and finish the final selection gesture. Pause briefly after the last change before leaving the workspace.
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Return to the explorer - Choose Back to whiteboards in the board header. This returns you to the Whiteboards explorer for the owning space area. You can also use More > Change document when you want to choose another board without first navigating elsewhere.
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Open the same board - Find the board in that area's Whiteboards explorer and open it again. A Whiteboard-linked file opened from Docs should also return to the board workspace.
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Verify the authored content - Confirm that the title and its style, post-it color, todo items and completion state, shapes, connector routes and attachments, freehand marks, object sizes, positions, and overlap order all returned.
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Test editability - Select one harmless object and confirm that its handles and contextual controls are available. Undo the check if it changed the finished plan.
The reopened, editable cluster is the completion point: the board has moved from an empty canvas to a readable plan that can continue through review, collaboration, and follow-up work.
