All chapters

  1. Getting started

    1. Start here
    2. Install, update & first launch
    3. Bring your notes in
    4. Your vault & the window

  2. Daily work

    1. Writing & the editor
    2. The Note Inspector & history
    3. Capturing ideas
    4. Today & daily notes
    5. Tasks
    6. Minutes: recording meetings

  3. Find and understand

    1. Finding & connecting notes
    2. Setting up AI
    3. Ask Header
    4. AI writing tools: Review, Refactor & the selection assistant
    5. Lenses
    6. Atlas
    7. Mindprint, Review & Retro

  4. Research and publish

    1. Research & the Reading Room
    2. Manuscripts
    3. Boards

  5. Protect your notes

    1. Trust, safety & privacy
    2. Sync & backup

  6. Reference

    1. Header across macOS
    2. Settings
    3. Keyboard shortcuts
    4. Help, feedback & FAQ
Thinking visually

Boards

A board is an open surface for laying ideas out in space: text cards, notes from your vault, web links, groups, and arrows between them. Header calls the collection Boards and each file a canvas. Boards are saved as JSON Canvas files, the same format Obsidian uses.

Make a board

File → New Canvas

Choose File → New Canvas (⌥⌘N). Header creates Untitled.canvas in the folder of the note you have selected (or at the top of the vault if none is selected) and opens it in place of the editor. Click the file name at the top of the board to rename it. If Untitled.canvas already exists, the next one is Untitled 2.canvas.

You can also click New Canvas in the Boards list, pick it from the arrow on the New Note button, type “New Canvas” in the command palette (⌘K), or open the link header://canvas.

Japan trip.canvas 100% Itinerary Japan bookings.md Bookings • Flights land on 3 April • Ryokan in Kyoto, 2 nights • Rail pass, 7 days Day 1: Tokyo ☐ Buy the rail pass ☐ Pocket Wi-Fi Day 2: Kyoto ☐ Fushimi Inari ☐ Ryokan check-in https://example.org/kyoto Double-click to open arrive tickets
A board for planning the trip. The note card, the two text cards and the link card are joined by arrows with labels, and the group draws a box around the two days. Four dots appear on a card's edges when you hover over it.
▶ Try this To plan a trip, make a board called “Japan trip”, add a text card for each day, drag your “Japan bookings” note onto the board, and draw an arrow from the bookings note to day one.
Find it File → New Canvas ⌥⌘N · Sidebar → Library → Boards → New Canvas

Cards

Text, notes and links
CardHow to add itWhat it shows
TextDouble-click an empty spot, or click the text-card button in the toolbar (it lands in the middle of the view)Markdown you type: headings, lists, checkboxes, quotes, code, bold and italic
NoteDrag a note from the Library list, or a file from Finder that's inside your vaultThe note's name and the start of its text. Images show a thumbnail and PDFs their first page.
LinkClick the link-card button, paste a URL, click AddThe web address
  • Double-click a text card to edit it. Press Esc or click elsewhere when you're done.
  • Double-click a note card to open the note; this closes the board. Right-click a note card for Open Note.
  • Double-click a link card, or right-click it and choose Open Link, to open it in your browser.
  • Drag the round handle at the bottom-right corner of a selected card to resize it.

A board stores where each note lives, so the files you drop on it must be inside the vault. A note card's preview is read when the board opens; if you edit that note, close and reopen the board to see the change. [[links]] typed in a text card show as text and can't be clicked.

Groups

A labelled box around related cards

Select some cards, then click the group button in the toolbar. Header draws a box around them labelled “Group” and lets you type a better name straight away; double-click the label later to rename it. Moving a group moves the cards inside it. Deleting a group leaves its cards in place.

Connections

Arrows between cards, with optional labels

Hover over a card and four small dots appear on its edges (“Drag to connect”). Drag from one onto another card to draw an arrow. Each connection has a small chip in the middle: double-click it to type a label, such as “depends on” or “contradicts”. Right-click the chip for Edit Label and Delete Connection. Deleting a card also removes its connections.

Colours

Six colours for cards, groups and connections

Select something and six colour swatches appear in the toolbar: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan and purple. Click one to colour the selection, or the crossed-circle button to clear it. They're saved as the six standard JSON Canvas colours, so Obsidian shows each card in the matching colour.

Move around and edit

Zoom, pan, select
To…Do this
ZoomPinch, or hold ⌘ and scroll. The toolbar has Zoom out, Zoom in and Zoom to fit (10% to 400%).
PanScroll, or hold ⌥ and drag the background
Select several cardsDrag a box on the background; ⇧-drag adds to the selection. ⌘-click or ⇧-click toggles one card.
NudgeArrow keys move the selection; hold ⇧ for small steps
Delete⌫, or the trash button
DuplicateThe duplicate button. Connections between the copied cards come along.
Copy and pasteEdit → Copy and Paste. Pasted cards land in the middle of the view.
UndoThe Undo and Redo buttons in the board's toolbar
LeaveEsc stops editing, then clears the selection, then closes the board

A board opens zoomed to fit everything on it. When you zoom far out, cards shrink to a one-line title so the layout stays readable.

The Boards list

Every board in the vault, wherever it lives

Open Library in the sidebar and click Boards. The list shows every .canvas file in the vault, newest first, with the same sort options as your notes. Right-click a board for Open, Reveal in Finder, Rename File..., Move To and Move to Trash.... Renaming changes only the name; the .canvas extension stays.

Find it Sidebar → Library → Boards · ⌘K “Open Boards”

Boards in search, links and the graph

Boards are part of your vault, not a separate world
  • Search. Search finds text inside boards: card text, group labels, link addresses and connection labels.
  • Graph. In the Vault Graph, a board is a rounded square rather than a circle. Each note card on it draws a line from the board to that note. Click a board in the graph to open it.
  • Backlinks. When a board has a note on it, that note's Links section lists the board, tagged “Board”.
  • Links into a board. Link to a board from a note with [[Japan trip.canvas]], or from outside Header with header://canvas?file= followed by the board's path inside the vault.
  • Renamed notes. If you rename or move a note in Header, note cards that point to it are updated, including on boards that aren't open.

How boards are saved

Plain JSON Canvas files in your vault

A board is a .canvas file in the JSON Canvas 1.0 format. It lists each card with its type, position, size and colour, a note card's path inside the vault, and each connection with its two ends and label. Fields Header doesn't use, such as those written by Obsidian plugins, are kept when Header saves. You can open the same board in Obsidian.

Header saves a moment after each change, and again when you close the board.

If the board changes on disk while you have it open (say, iCloud brings in an edit from your other Mac, or you changed it in Obsidian), Header doesn't overwrite that version. It saves your edits to a “(conflicted copy)” file next to it and tells you, so you can merge the two. Boards don't have Time Travel history, and undo lasts only until you close the board.