Start here
Your first board
Press New board, then learn where everything sits and how to get your own work onto the canvas.
Go to your dashboard and press **New board** on the workspace home. An empty canvas opens. The board is the document, and it stretches as far as you push it. ## What sits around the canvas Plnty keeps its chrome on the four edges. | Edge | What lives there | | - | - | | Left | The tool sidebar, grouped by what the tools make | | Top | The board's name, Explore, your credit balance, notifications and Share | | Right | Three bubbles: message the Plnty team, report a bug, and the Learn rail | | Bottom | Select, pan, scale, text, sticky note, sketch, comment, frame, palette and Render | The bug reporter screenshots what you are looking at before it opens the form, so you rarely have to describe anything. <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>Shift</kbd> <kbd>B</kbd> opens it from anywhere. The Learn rail holds walkthrough videos on one tab and everything new in Plnty on the other. ## Moving around Three gestures cover nearly everything. | Gesture | What it does | | - | - | | Hold <kbd>Space</kbd> and drag | Pan the canvas, exactly as it works in Figma | | Pinch on a trackpad, or <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> and scroll | Zoom in and out | | Drag on empty canvas | Marquee-select whatever falls inside | Spacebar panning keeps working when your cursor is over a sticky note or an image rather than bare canvas, so you never have to hunt for a gap to grab. A pen tablet needs no setup. Panning and zooming read the same pointer events a mouse sends, and the barrel button is a right-click, which opens the search below. Pressure is read where it changes the work: stroke width in sketch, and the full brush engine in bodypaint, which runs on pressure, velocity and the surface under the tip. ## Right-click and double-click Right-click empty canvas and a search opens beside your cursor, with four buttons under it for the things you add most. Type a few letters and it becomes a short list of the tools that match, the closest first. Whatever you pick lands where you clicked. | Button | What it adds | | - | - | | Prompt | A prompt card, for writing before you know which tool wants it | | Upload | A file picker, landing the files where you clicked | | Voice memo | A recorder, anchored where you clicked | | Emoji | A reaction, dropped straight onto the canvas | <kbd>Enter</kbd> places the tool at the top of the list. <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>K</kbd> opens the full search with what you typed, still aimed at the spot you clicked, for when the tool you want is not among the first few or you are after a board or a command. Double-click empty canvas for your library instead, filtered by kind, with a search of its own. That search is worth knowing about early. It runs across the name, the tags, the colours, the style and the description of every asset you own, ranked, so you can find something by half-remembering what it looked like instead of what you called it. ## Bring your own work in Drag files straight onto the canvas from your desktop. They land where you drop them, upload in the background, and are ready to feed into a tool as soon as the thumbnail resolves. | Kind | Formats | | - | - | | Images | `.png` `.jpg` `.jpeg` `.webp` `.svg` | | Video | `.mp4` `.mov` `.webm` | | 3D | `.glb` `.gltf` `.obj` `.fbx` `.stl` | Audio is not on that list. Sound arrives on a board by being generated there, from the sound tools, rather than by being dragged in. A `.glb` arrives as a real mesh rather than a preview image. You can orbit it, light it and render it on the spot, on the same canvas as the rest of your work. Paste a link and it renders as a card. A YouTube or Vimeo URL becomes a player, and a web page becomes the page itself. :::note[Coming from Cinema 4D] Plnty Connect moves scenes between C4D and a board without exporting by hand. It is covered in [Cinema 4D with Plnty Connect](/docs/using-plnty/bringing-your-work-in/cinema-4d/). ::: ## Make it on the canvas The rest of what ends up on a board is made here, from the bottom toolbar. Write **text** anywhere. Leave a **sticky note** for whoever opens the board next. **Sketch** over the top of something to say what you mean faster than typing it. Drop a **comment**, which can pin to a single point on a 3D object and stay there while the object turns. Draw a **frame** to group work and hold a look, and under the frame button's chevron, build a **palette** of swatches you can drag onto a tool. Everything in that list is shared the moment you make it. A teammate opening the same board sees your cursor moving and your edits landing as they happen. ## Boards, workspaces and who sees what A board sits inside a workspace, and the workspace is what carries your storage, your credits and your teammates. Anyone in the workspace can open the board. People outside it see nothing until you share the board explicitly, which produces a read-only link that needs no account. :::caution[One board, one browser tab] Open the same board in two tabs and Plnty will hold the edit claim in one of them. The second tab goes read-only rather than letting two copies of you fight over the same document. ::: Once something is on the canvas, the next move is to run a tool over it.Go to your dashboard and press New board on the workspace home. An empty canvas opens. The board is the document, and it stretches as far as you push it.
What sits around the canvas
Section titled “What sits around the canvas”Plnty keeps its chrome on the four edges.
| Edge | What lives there |
|---|---|
| Left | The tool sidebar, grouped by what the tools make |
| Top | The board’s name, Explore, your credit balance, notifications and Share |
| Right | Three bubbles: message the Plnty team, report a bug, and the Learn rail |
| Bottom | Select, pan, scale, text, sticky note, sketch, comment, frame, palette and Render |
The bug reporter screenshots what you are looking at before it opens the form, so you rarely have to describe anything. Ctrl Shift B opens it from anywhere. The Learn rail holds walkthrough videos on one tab and everything new in Plnty on the other.
Moving around
Section titled “Moving around”Three gestures cover nearly everything.
| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Hold Space and drag | Pan the canvas, exactly as it works in Figma |
| Pinch on a trackpad, or Ctrl and scroll | Zoom in and out |
| Drag on empty canvas | Marquee-select whatever falls inside |
Spacebar panning keeps working when your cursor is over a sticky note or an image rather than bare canvas, so you never have to hunt for a gap to grab.
A pen tablet needs no setup. Panning and zooming read the same pointer events a mouse sends, and the barrel button is a right-click, which opens the search below. Pressure is read where it changes the work: stroke width in sketch, and the full brush engine in bodypaint, which runs on pressure, velocity and the surface under the tip.
Right-click and double-click
Section titled “Right-click and double-click”Right-click empty canvas and a search opens beside your cursor, with four buttons under it for the things you add most. Type a few letters and it becomes a short list of the tools that match, the closest first. Whatever you pick lands where you clicked.
| Button | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Prompt | A prompt card, for writing before you know which tool wants it |
| Upload | A file picker, landing the files where you clicked |
| Voice memo | A recorder, anchored where you clicked |
| Emoji | A reaction, dropped straight onto the canvas |
Enter places the tool at the top of the list. Ctrl K opens the full search with what you typed, still aimed at the spot you clicked, for when the tool you want is not among the first few or you are after a board or a command.
Double-click empty canvas for your library instead, filtered by kind, with a search of its own. That search is worth knowing about early. It runs across the name, the tags, the colours, the style and the description of every asset you own, ranked, so you can find something by half-remembering what it looked like instead of what you called it.
Bring your own work in
Section titled “Bring your own work in”Drag files straight onto the canvas from your desktop. They land where you drop them, upload in the background, and are ready to feed into a tool as soon as the thumbnail resolves.
| Kind | Formats |
|---|---|
| Images | .png .jpg .jpeg .webp .svg |
| Video | .mp4 .mov .webm |
| 3D | .glb .gltf .obj .fbx .stl |
Audio is not on that list. Sound arrives on a board by being generated there, from the sound tools, rather than by being dragged in.
A .glb arrives as a real mesh rather than a preview image. You can orbit it, light
it and render it on the spot, on the same canvas as the rest of your work.
Paste a link and it renders as a card. A YouTube or Vimeo URL becomes a player, and a web page becomes the page itself.
Make it on the canvas
Section titled “Make it on the canvas”The rest of what ends up on a board is made here, from the bottom toolbar.
Write text anywhere. Leave a sticky note for whoever opens the board next. Sketch over the top of something to say what you mean faster than typing it. Drop a comment, which can pin to a single point on a 3D object and stay there while the object turns. Draw a frame to group work and hold a look, and under the frame button’s chevron, build a palette of swatches you can drag onto a tool.
Everything in that list is shared the moment you make it. A teammate opening the same board sees your cursor moving and your edits landing as they happen.
Boards, workspaces and who sees what
Section titled “Boards, workspaces and who sees what”A board sits inside a workspace, and the workspace is what carries your storage, your credits and your teammates. Anyone in the workspace can open the board.
People outside it see nothing until you share the board explicitly, which produces a read-only link that needs no account.
Once something is on the canvas, the next move is to run a tool over it.