Canvas A document editor for everything else.
Block-based, markdown-native, version-controlled, AI-augmented. Built for novels, research, technical writing, and any team writing anything longer than a memo. Lossless markdown round-trip means your work survives Inkwell.
On working with constraints
Constraints don't fight a draft — they give it edges. The hardest part of any long document is deciding what it isn't.
Working hypothesis: the more open the canvas, the longer the first paragraph takes.
Outline section 2 · Confirm three quotes · Draft conclusion
const audience = readers.filter(r => r.cares_about(topic))Source · Year · Quoted on page
- On working with constraints8.4k words
- Introduction3 blocks
- What constraints actually do12 blocks
- The blank-page failureBlock 4–7
- Constraint as scaffoldingBlock 8–11
- Case studies5 sections
- Research notebook32 sources
- Conclusion & open questionsDraft
24+
Block types out of the box
6
Native export formats
100%
Markdown round-trip
For anyone writing longer than a memo
A block editor with version history, AI skills, and real-time collaboration. Organize your long document, compare revisions, and work through a writing pass with your collaborators.
Novelists & long-form writers
Chapter-structured drafts, research notebooks alongside the manuscript, version-controlled revisions. Save points snapshot your day's work; draft lines explore an alternate plot direction without forking files.
Researchers & technical writers
RFCs, design docs, papers. Citations link to sources, code blocks render inline, structure checks catch sections that don't match the outline. Markdown round-trips losslessly with the rest of your toolchain.
Knowledge workers & teams
Internal wikis, briefs, runbooks. Real-time co-authoring, threaded comments, history that survives the document. Every save point preserved — no ‘who broke the doc’ archaeology.
Block-based, extensible, properly fast
Type / for the block menu. Drag the handle to reorder. Nest blocks inside blocks. Canvas recognizes headings, paragraphs, and other blocks so you can track, compare, and revise each part of your document.
- 24+ built-in block types — heading, paragraph, table, callout, code, quote, footnote, citation, more
- Drag-and-drop reorder, nest with Tab, ungroup with Shift+Tab
- Live outline pane — jump to any heading, see depth at a glance
- Block-level cursors and presence — see who's editing where in real time
- Compare drafts by block — see which paragraphs changed and which headings moved.
Your work survives Inkwell
Canvas treats markdown as a first-class representation, not an export afterthought. Paste markdown, get blocks. Copy blocks, get markdown back — preserved structure, footnotes, callouts, tables, code fences. The same document, two representations, losslessly.
That's the difference between a document tool and a vendor lock-in.
Lossless conversion
Footnotes, citations, task lists, code fences — all round-trip cleanly.
Pipe to anything
Pandoc, hugo, mdx, your static-site generator, your AI prompt — all work on Canvas markdown directly.
# On working with constraints
Constraints don't fight a draft — they
give it **edges**. The hardest part of
any long document is deciding what
it _isn't_.
> Working hypothesis: the more open
> the canvas, the longer the first
> paragraph takes.
- [ ] Outline section 2
- [ ] Confirm three quotes
- [x] Draft conclusionOn working with constraints
Constraints don't fight a draft — they give it edges. The hardest part of any long document is deciding what it isn't.
Working hypothesis: the more open the canvas, the longer the first paragraph takes.
- Outline section 2
- Confirm three quotes
- Draft conclusion
One editor, every kind of long-form work
Each row is a starting template. The block tags hint at what writers actually drop in first; the editor adapts to whatever shape your document needs.
Novel & long-form fiction
Chapter outlines, character notes, world-building references. Draft lines explore an alternate ending without losing the trunk. Save points snapshot every reading-pass milestone.
Technical writing
RFCs, design docs, API references. Code blocks with syntax highlighting, structured examples, real-time review with engineering teams.
Research notebook
Source-linked research that doesn't lose threads. Citations track to PDFs and URLs, evidence trails run alongside argumentation, search across every doc in the project.
Internal docs & wikis
Briefs, runbooks, design specs, post-mortems. Co-authored in real time, versioned forever, exportable to whatever format your team agrees on.
Academic writing
Papers, dissertations, lit reviews. Footnotes, bibliographies, structured outline mode. Reading-level skill checks accessibility against a target audience.
Personal knowledge
Atomic notes that link to each other, daily journals, reading log. Markdown-native means your notes survive Inkwell — they round-trip cleanly to any tool.
Chapter 3 argues that the second act needs to slow down — the reader isn't ready to move on yet.
Agreed. Let's hold the reveal until after the market scene.
Blocked at the paragraph, not the file — your sentence is safe.
Co-author without stepping on each other
Block-level cursors, named presence, threaded comments anchored to specific paragraphs. Two people can rewrite the same chapter at the same time — Canvas resolves edits at the block level, not the character level, so nobody's sentence gets overwritten.
Every comment, every save point, every accepted edit lives in the document's history. When someone asks "who wrote this and why?" — the answer is one click away.
Conflict-free co-editing
Simultaneous edits resolve cleanly at the block boundary — no lost keystrokes, no waiting for a lock.
History survives
Comments and resolved threads stay in the document's history, not a separate tool.
Version everything, name nothing twice
Save points snapshot the document at any moment — before a major rewrite, after a draft pass, the version you sent to a reviewer. Draft lines branch the document into parallel versions: try a different argument, restructure a chapter, explore an alternate framing — all without losing the trunk.
Diffs are block-aware. See exactly which heading moved, which paragraph was rewritten, which citation changed — not a wall of red and green character-level edits.
Save points
Named, immutable snapshots. Cmd+S anytime, or auto on document milestones.
Draft lines
Parallel versions. Try a different framing; incorporate it if it works.
Skills tuned for long-form documents
Six skills for outlines, citations, and prose. Each reads the document, proposes block-level edits, and lets you accept or reject changes one at a time. Work through the pass where you write.
Outline → Draft
Hand the AI a structured outline. It expands each beat into a draft block, leaving the structure intact so your edits stay surgical.
Structure check
Surface gaps in your document — missing sections, dangling references, headings that don't match the outline, paragraphs that wandered off-topic.
Research digest
Drop in PDFs, articles, transcripts. The skill extracts the relevant passages into linked block citations — every quote traceable to its source.
Tone & style pass
Rewrite a document end-to-end in a target voice — academic, conversational, technical, marketing. Each change is a block-level edit you accept or reject.
Reading-level check
Measures sentence complexity, jargon density, and passive-voice ratio against a target audience. Flags the dense paragraphs that lose readers.
Inline edit (Cmd+K)
Select any block, describe the change. The AI rewrites it in place. Accept or reject line by line. No context switching, no chat sidebar.
Canvas skills are reviewable — each suggestion is a block-level edit you accept or reject. Accepting creates a save point automatically. Your draft is never modified without your decision.
Your work, your files
Read and write the formats your collaborators already use. Keep your markdown and export a document they can open.
Bonus: cross-product blocks
Already using Plot? Embed scenes inline.
If you write screenplays in Plot, Canvas can embed live scenes from your scripts — rendered with WGA-compliant screenplay formatting, pinned to a save point or following the latest draft. A pitch deck that references the actual production draft, not a stale copy.
Two products on one platform
Plot for screenplays, Canvas for prose, research, and notes. Both share version history, AI assistance, and collaboration — and a Plot scene can appear inside a Canvas document.
Reach for Plot
- You're writing a screenplay or teleplay
- You need a WGA-formatted screenplay PDF or FDX export
- You need locked scripts, A-pages, revision colors
- The output is pages, not paragraphs
Reach for Canvas
- You're writing prose, research, technical docs, or notes
- You want flexible blocks (tables, lists, callouts, code, citations)
- You want lossless markdown round-trip
- The output is a document, not pages
Canvas guides by audience
Long-form, research, and team workflows — novels, RFCs, wikis, and workplace docs with named history and block-aware diffs.
Work spans more than one role? See every audience guide.
Long documents deserve real tools
Canvas is in early access for Pro users. Join the waitlist now — markdown-native, version-controlled, AI-augmented document editing without the vendor lock-in.