Help › Planning

The Visual Planner Canvas

Plan on an infinite canvas of cards with connections, line styles, automatic layouts, alignment, grid snap and fast zoom.

The Visual Planner is a large canvas where every idea, scene, chapter, character, task or reference is a card. You can arrange cards freely, connect them, group them in folders and let WriterMorph lay them out for you.

The canvas and Manuscript Mode are two views of the same cards. Whatever you build here becomes the binder of your book.

Creating cards

Press ⌘N on the canvas to open the card type picker. Start typing to filter the list.
Press ⌃1 to ⌃9 to create one of the first nine types in the New Card menu directly.
Use the toolbar's New card ▾ button. Its left half creates another card of the type you used last; the ▾ menu lists recent types, project types, content, story and task types, cards from templates, and Duplicate selected.
Right-click empty canvas and choose New card.
Documents › New Card of Type lists the same types in the menu bar.

Built-in card types

Group	Types
Text cards	Section, Group, Note, Draft, Research, Reference, Introduction, Conclusion, Abstract, Appendix
Story	Character, Location, Storyboard
Organizing	Folder, Sticky Note
Media	Image, Embed, HTML
Tasks	Task (with sub-types such as To Do, Research, Review, Edit, Deadline, Milestone and Reminder)

You can create your own card types too. See Card Properties and Custom Fields.

Editing and moving cards

Select a card and press Return to edit it, or double-click it.
Drag a card to move it. Drag its corner to resize it.
⌘D duplicates the selection; ⇧⌘D duplicates it together with its connections.
Delete moves selected cards to the project trash, so you can restore them later.
Cards with children show a small badge you can click to collapse or expand everything below them.

Right-click a card for Edit, Preview, Send to Manuscript, Reveal in Manuscript, Include in Manuscript / Exclude from Manuscript, Duplicate, Save as Card Template…, Copy, Paste, Connect, Layout Children, Connections and Delete.

Media cards

Image, Embed, HTML and Storyboard cards show media right on the canvas. In the card editor's Media section you can upload a file, paste, or link a web page, a YouTube video, a video file, an image or a PDF. HTML cards open in a code editor with a live preview.

Connections

Drag from a card's connection port to another card to connect them, or right-click a card and use Connect.

Right-click a connection line to:

choose a Connection Type or Line Style,
Edit Label…,
Reverse Direction,
Disconnect.

Line routing and styles

In Project › Project Settings… (⌥⌘,), under Connections, you can choose how lines are drawn: Curved, Straight or Right Angle.

You can also build a library of line styles. Each style has a name, a color, a line type (Solid, Dashed or Dotted), a width, arrowheads (none, at the end, or at both ends), and an optional label and icon. WriterMorph starts you with styles such as Default, Cause → effect, Foreshadowing, Conflict and Reference. Show or hide each style on the canvas from the toolbar's line styles menu.

Built-in relationship types include Depends On, Blocks, Related To, References, Extends and Conflicts With.

Automatic layout

Choose Canvas › Layout Mode… (⇧⌘L) to rearrange the canvas in one step:

Layout	What it does
Tree Layout	A hierarchical tree (down, up, right or left)
Free Form	Keeps your manual positions
Horizontal / Vertical	Cards in a row or a column
Grid Layout	An even grid
Radial	Rings radiating from a center card
Timeline	A horizontal line sorted by date
Mind Map	A central card with branches to the left and right

Save an arrangement you like under Saved Layouts and restore it later. To lay out only part of the board, right-click a card and use Layout Children.

Align and distribute

Select two or more cards and open Align Nodes in the toolbar:

Align Left, Align Center, Align Right
Align Top, Align Middle, Align Bottom
Distribute Horizontal, Distribute Vertical

Grid snap and canvas size

Toggle Grid Snap in the toolbar.
In Project Settings › Canvas, set the grid size and the canvas size (Small, Medium, Large, Huge or Custom).

Backgrounds

Give each planner its own background: the theme default, a solid Colour, a Gradient, a Grid, Dots or an Image (fit, fill, tile or center, with opacity and blur). Right-click empty canvas and choose Background, or open the background settings in Project Settings.

Zoom and pan

Action	How
Zoom in / out	⌘+ / ⌘-, pinch, or the mouse wheel
Fit to Screen	⌘0
Zoom to Selection	⌃⌘1
Pan	Hold Space and drag, drag with the middle mouse button, use the Hand tool, or scroll with the trackpad

Tip: In Settings › Behaviors, you can decide whether dragging on empty canvas pans or draws a selection box, and whether the mouse wheel and trackpad zoom or pan.

The Outline panel

Press ⌘L to show the Outline panel next to the canvas. It lists every card as a tree.

Filter by title or summary, or by property, for example status: draft or type: character.
Show only the first levels of the tree with the level buttons.
Reorder with ⌥↑ / ⌥↓, indent with ⌥→ and outdent with ⌥←.

Exporting the board

File › Export › Canvas as PNG… or Canvas as PDF… saves an image of the board.
The planner toolbar can also download the board as PNG, JPG, PDF or JSON, or copy it as JSON.