Canvas
Using a canvas in a meeting
The whiteboard in a Meet call is an ordinary Canvas document owned by the host, so it works like any other board and is still there after everybody hangs up.
Press Whiteboard in the call controls, or press W, and a board opens in a panel beside the video. Everybody in the call gets the same board, guests included, and it stays after the meeting ends.
The thing worth knowing: it is not a drawing surface bolted onto the call. It is a normal Canvas document, so it has every tool a board on its own has, it saves the same way, and it lives in a workspace afterwards.
Somebody presses Whiteboard
The first person to press it creates the board. There is one per meeting.
Everybody else gets a button that lights up
Opening it puts them on the same board, guests included.
The call ends
The board stays in the host's Canvas list, with everything on it.
Who owns it#
The board belongs to the person who started the meeting, not to whoever pressed the button. That is deliberate: a guest has no account to own a document with, and a whiteboard that vanishes when one participant closes their laptop is not a whiteboard. It is created in the host's workspace, named after the meeting, and it counts towards the host's document allowance and storage.
Everybody else reaches it through a link Nemi sets up on the board for the call, which is how a guest with no account can draw on a document in somebody else's workspace. If the host later gives that board a password, sets it to require an account, gives it an expiry date or switches its link off in Canvas, that decision stands: from then on only people with their own access to the document can open it, and everybody else sees nothing when they press the button.
Working on it during a call#
- The panel is wider than chat, because a board at chat width is a postage stamp. On a phone it opens as a full sheet.
- The arrow in the panel header opens the same board in its own tab, which is what you want if you are the one doing most of the drawing.
- Everybody's cursor is on it with their name, exactly as on a board outside a call.
- Screen sharing and the whiteboard are separate. You do not need to share your screen for people to see what you draw.
After the call#
The board is in the host's Canvas list with the meeting's name on it, and behaves like any other board from then on: rename it, duplicate it, share it with a link, or export it. Everybody in the host's workspace can already open it. Somebody outside it needs a share link, since the one used during the call was for the call.
Meeting notes are a separate document, and the same rule applies to them: they belong to the host and outlive the call. See Whiteboard, notes and polls for the meeting side of all three.
When it does not open#
The panel spins and never loads.
The board is a Nemi page inside the meeting page, and hard privacy settings or extensions that block embedded frames stop it. Use the arrow in the panel header to open it in its own tab instead.
A guest says the board is empty or will not open.
Check the board in Canvas: if its link has a password, requires an account, has expired or is switched off, guests cannot reach it. Turn the link back on with edit permission, or send them the board separately.
Can we use a board we already made?
The meeting always opens its own board. To work on an existing one, open it in another tab and share its link in the meeting chat, or copy the drawing across.
Two people pressed it at the same moment and there are two boards.
Everybody ends up on one of them and the other is left empty in the host's Canvas list. Delete the empty one.
Is the whiteboard recorded?
Only if somebody is recording the call and the board is on their screen, since a recording is a picture of one person's view. The board itself is saved as a document either way.
Related
Still stuck? Email support@nemilab.com and tell us what you were trying to do.