Mind Map

Lay out cards, shapes, and arrows freely across a vast infinite canvas, and spread your tangled thoughts out in the open! And yes, it's fully compatible with Obsidian's Canvas (.canvas) format too. 😎

← Back home: ObsiKO 101

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Opening a new mind map / revisiting one 🎨

• Click the New Mind Map button in the top left to create a blank .canvas file. (It's created in the same place as when you make a document — see Getting Started)
• In the file tree, right-click a folder (⋯ at the right of the row on phones and tablets) ▸ New Mindmap to create one right inside that folder.
• Click a .canvas file sitting quietly in the file tree, and — ta-da — it renders and opens as a mind map view.

▲ Lay out cards, shapes, and arrows freely on an infinite canvas! (Compatible with Obsidian Canvas)

The many kinds of nodes (cards) that fill a canvas 🗂️

• Text cards / file cards (pull in your own notes) / web page cards (web addresses) / and even groups to bundle things together!
  • The toolbar's 'Note card (search)' finds every document you can drop in — not just notes (.md/.txt) but mind maps (.canvas), data tables (.base), and PDFs. No need to drag anything: search by name and in it goes (images, video and audio stay with the Media card tool next to it).
  • Drag in another mind map (.canvas) file and what arrives isn't code but a card with a snapshot (a small picture) of that mind map — perfect for splitting a big picture across several canvases that refer to each other (double-click it to open that mind map).
  • PDF cards turn like pages 📄: drop in a PDF from your vault and the card shows it one page at a time — flip back and forth with ‹ 3 / 12 › underneath. The page you were on is still there next time you open it. Links inside the PDF work too — ones that point inside the document, like a table of contents or footnotes, jump to that page, and web addresses open in the browser. Dragging over ‹ › still moves the card, and page turns don't pile up in Undo (⌘Z). You can write on the page with a pen too (see 'Sketch by hand — freehand drawing' below).
  • Files that can't be previewed, like Word, Hangul (HWP) and archive files, come in as attachment cards showing their name and format. Double-tap one and documents ObsiKO can display (Word, Hangul, Excel, EPUB and so on) open in ObsiKO; everything else opens in your device's app.
  • Note cards show the pictures from the note too 🖼️: an ![](image.png) in the note (Obsidian's ![[image.png]] works as well) appears right where it belongs, between the lines, inside the card. Cards are small, so only the first 4, scaled to the card's width. They come along in mind-map cards embedded in other notes and in image exports too.
  • Paste a Google Maps address and the card shows the map 🗺️: if it's a link copied from the browser's address bar (one with @latitude,longitude in it), the card carries a picture of that spot and the place name. An address that only names a place (including the short "Share" link) can't tell us where to draw, so you get the link with no picture — we'd rather show nothing than pass off the wrong neighbourhood as your place. (In the web-browser edition the picture is skipped too.) Paste the same address into a note and you get a live, movable map instead.
  • Formatting shows on cards too ✨: write **bold**, *italic*, ~~strikethrough~~, ==highlight== or `code` in a text card and it shows as that style instead of the symbols. A note card whose body is empty shows the note's summary property instead.
• Plain text (label): for when you just want clean text with no border! Double-click to start typing right away.
• Shapes: clean, text-free shapes — 45 of them! From basic shapes (circle, triangle, rectangle, polygon…) to arrows (up/down/left/right, bidirectional, elbow, curved, U-turn, rotated), speech bubbles / thought bubbles / cloud bubbles, stars, bursts, sparkles, people (stick figures, torsos), and even cubes, lightning bolts, water drops, crescents, and hearts.
• Auto mind map: hit the Auto Mind Map button in the toolbar, and it automatically spreads out nodes following the [[links]] of the note you picked as the center. → Wiki Links & Tags
  • Pressing the button first pops up a small options window — tick ☑ Include notes pointing here (backlinks & relations) and/or ☑ Two levels (the links of the linked notes too), then hit Create! Your choices are remembered and shown again next time.
• Chart cards 📊 · one-page summaries: put a note containing a ```chart block on the canvas and the card shows the actual chart instead of the JSON. That lets you lay out a one-page summary — a title, the key numbers, and several charts side by side — with no new syntax to learn: write the chart into a note, drop the note on the canvas, done. Ask the AI to "sum up this quarter on one page" and it builds exactly this. Chart colors follow theme changes, and if the chart data is broken the card falls back to the normal text preview instead of breaking. → Advanced Markdown
• Base mind map 📊: drop a Bases (.base) file onto the canvas and it slots right in as a file card. Select that card and press the toolbar's Auto Mind Map button — a picker for the boards (views) inside the base pops up, and the board you choose expands into a whole mind map! Boards that group by status (project · PARA · library) get wrapped in colored group boxes, aligned in a grid like a kanban (center = the base card, with a "column" per status below it), while flat views like a table lay their cards out in a tidy grid. If there are a lot of items (more than 80), they're split fairly across the groups and the leftovers are shown as a +N more… card. You don't even need to place a card first — with nothing selected, press the Auto Mind Map button and the file list that pops up includes .base files too, so pick one and it drops a base card in the middle of the screen and expands it right away. → Bases (Data Tables)

Bend it to your will 🕹️

• Grab a card and drag it around, or grab a corner and stretch its size up and down!
• Spin it around 🔄: select a card and a rotate handle appears above it, letting you turn it. Plain text (label), shapes, and sticky notes can all rotate — and now image cards can rotate too! (Even after rotating an image, the arrows connected to it snap precisely to the rotated corners.)
• Shift tricks: hold Shift while resizing to keep the original aspect ratio as it grows or shrinks. Hold Shift while moving to lock movement to a straight horizontal/vertical line. And for rotation, Shift snaps you to 15° increments.
• Bold and text size 🔠: select a text card or plain text and press the T button on the bar above it for Bold and a size slider. You see the change as you drag, and the card grows along with bigger text. Select several and they all change together.
• Grab a card's port (connection point) and pull it over to another card to drop it in place, and you'll get a sturdy arrow connecting them.
  • Lines attach to a shape's real edge 📐: on ellipse, pill, diamond, parallelogram, hexagon and cylinder cards, and on shapes (star, cloud, heart, speech bubble…), a line doesn't stop in empty space — it comes right up to the visible outline. PNG and SVG exports look the same. Rectangle cards work as before.
  • Drop it on an empty spot instead of another card, and a new card appears right there, joined by an arrow, ready for you to type. Handy when one thought leads to the next.
  • On mobile the ports are bigger, with a finger-sized touch area around them. Tap a card first to select it and its ports appear — and the touch area stays finger-sized even when you're zoomed out. 👆
• The mini toolbar that pops up on selection 🎨: select a card or an arrow and a small toolbar appears above it. Press the color button to open the color palette (color selection is folded into a single button, so even on the iPhone's narrow screen nothing — not even the delete button — gets cut off!); for a colour outside the presets, the palette icon in the last slot opens the Colors panel (colour wheel), and use the background opacity slider to gently tint a card's or shape's background.
  • Line style: if you selected a card with a border (a text card, note card, link card or shape), pick its line style (solid · dashed · dotted) right here; if you selected an arrow, change its line style — 10 of them (solid · dashed · dotted · double · elbow · wavy · sketch · a squiggly, scrawled-by-hand line · small zigzag · large zigzag).
  • Line thickness: the thickness slider beside it sets arrows and card borders anywhere from hairline to very bold. A thick arrow gets a bigger arrowhead to match.
  • Arrowhead shapes: press an arrow's start or end button to choose from 7 shapes — Triangle · Arrow · Open · Flat · Circle · Filled circle · Diamond (or None). Start and end can differ. (Opened in Obsidian, they show as the default triangle.)
• Pick an arrow line style ➰: each press of the toolbar's Line style button switches straight → curved → bus (elbow). Turn on the Bundle lines button below it, and arrows fanning out from one card gather into a single trunk and only split at the ends, tidying up a messy bundle of arrows (line style and bundling switch on independently).
• Try dragging an image or file onto the canvas, or copy-pasting one in. It slots right in as a card! (Works on iPhone too!) On iPad (and an unfolded iPhone Duo) you can also drag a photo from the Photos app open beside it, and on iPhone and iPad HEIC photos show up as photo cards too.
• Right-click (PC) or press and hold (mobile), and a bunch of handy magic menus pop out.
• Magnet, grid, and fit-to-view: click the Grid button in the toolbar to choose (or turn off) a dropdown of small grid · large grid · dots · lined · isometric (triangular grid). Dots draw only a point at each intersection instead of lines — much quieter, so your cards and connections stand out. Lined draws only horizontal rules, like a notebook, with every fifth line slightly darker (zoom far out and only the darker lines stay, so it never gets crowded). Line and grid colors match the background, so they don't get lost on a blackboard, whiteboard, corkboard or kraft paper. Turn on Magnet and cards snap right onto the grid, making alignment a breeze; the Fit to View button (or a middle-click) gathers everything scattered about into one screen.
• Find a card 🔎: press ⌘F and a Search cards box appears. Type a word and the view glides to the card that contains it — Enter = next · ⇧Enter = previous · Esc = close. No more getting lost on a big canvas!
• Bookmark 🔖: keep a mindmap you open often with the bookmark ribbon at the top right (the same spot as markdown notes and Bases). The ribbon goes light or dark to match the background — light on a blackboard, dark on a whiteboard. → 07 Search & Navigation
• Minimap 🗺️: the small map in the bottom right shows the whole canvas layout plus the area you're currently viewing (blue outline). Click or drag the minimap and the view zips right over to that spot! It really earns its keep as your canvas grows (toggle it on/off with the toolbar's Minimap button — smooth touch-drag support on iPad too).
  • 📱 On iPhone it sits small in the top right — mostly staying very faint (transparent) so it doesn't crowd the narrow screen, and only becoming crisp while you're holding and moving it.
• Branching out (Tab / Enter) 🌿: select one card and press Tab to spawn a child card connected by an arrow, or press Enter to spawn a sibling card sharing the same parent — and typing starts right away, letting you brainstorm with just the keyboard! On touch devices, long-press a card and use the menu's 'Create Child Card (Tab)' / 'Create Sibling Card (Enter)' to do the exact same thing.
• Turn a card into a note 📝: right-click a text card (long-press on mobile) and pick 'Convert to note' — a .md note holding the card's content is created in your vault, and the card turns into a note file card right where it sat (position, size, and connected arrows all kept!). When you're brainstorming freely on the canvas and think "this card deserves to grow into a proper document," you can promote it to a note on the spot. The note's title is taken automatically from the card's first line.
  • Episode cards inside a web-novel work become episode notes ✍️: if the first line is an episode name like **Episode 4 Black Bridge**, the note is made in that work's story folder with the episode template (status, release date), and the lines after it go into summary — so it shows up straight away on the dashboard and in the outline's Episodes tab. Outside a work, or without an episode name, it's made as before, in the current folder with the card's text as is. → Project View · Backlinks & Outline
• Duplicate & Lock 🔒: from the right-click (long-press on mobile) menu, Duplicate makes an identical copy of a card in a snap, and Lock pins a card in place — a little padlock appears and moving, resizing, rotating, editing, and deleting are all blocked so you won't nudge it by accident (you can still select it). Right-click again → Unlock. And this menu only shows the items you can actually use right now, so it always stays tidy.
• Auto tidy (7 layouts) 🪄: even cards you scattered freely snap into a clean tree with one press of the Auto Tidy button on the toolbar. Pressing it opens a shape menu — Radial (spreading out from the center), Logic (right) (great for outlines/hierarchies), Org chart (down) (top → bottom), Balanced (the classic mind map shape most people picture), Timeline (left → right order), Fishbone (an Ishikawa cause-analysis diagram), and Matrix (a comparison grid). Cards must be connected with arrows to tidy, and the center is the card you selected (one) or the card with the most outgoing arrows. Your last-picked shape is remembered for next time.
  • ✨ 'Tidy with colors & sizes' at the top of the shape menu tidies the map in the shape you picked last (radial at first) and also fits each card to its text, gives every main branch its own color, and draws the lines from the center to the main branches thick and the lines that cross between branches dashed, so the map reads at a glance (it doesn't make any text bold — the bold center-card title only comes with maps the AI draws from scratch). Colors you picked yourself stay as they are, and one ⌘Z brings everything back.
  • 💡 Auto tidy only rearranges when you press it — it never shuffles things around while you place cards or draw, so enjoy free placement and freehand drawing to your heart's content and tidy only when you want.
• Drop in a template (11 of them) 📋: press the Template button in the toolbar to lay a ready-made structure down in the center of the screen, all in one go — save yourself the board-building time!
  • SWOT analysis (2×2 quadrants) · Kanban board (To Do · Doing · Done, 3 columns) · Timeline (5 stage cards linked by arrows)
  • Mandal-Art (9×9, 81 cells — a core goal in the very center, sub-goals in the 8 cells around it, each sub-goal feeding into the center of an outer block where you fill in the action plan)
  • 5W1H (walk a topic through Who · What · When · Where · Why · How) · Logic pyramid (main claim → supporting reasons) · Ki-Seung-Jeon-Gyeol (the four-part story structure: intro · develop · turn · conclude)
  • Eisenhower (2×2 — sort tasks by urgent/important: do now · schedule · delegate · drop) · KPT retrospective (Keep · Problem · Try) · OKR goal map (objective → key results → tasks) · Cornell notes (the three-pane cues/notes/summary method)
• Presentation mode 🎞️: press the presentation button in the toolbar and it zooms into your cards one by one, in the order the arrows connect them. →/Space = next, ← = previous, Esc = exit. Your mind map becomes a presentation, just like that.
• Change up the background: click the Background button in the toolbar to choose from more than the default — pick moody backgrounds like corkboard, blackboard, gray, whiteboard, kraft paper, or canvas (fabric). (Cork, kraft paper, and canvas are real photographic textures!)
  • Text color adjusts automatically: on a dark blackboard background, cards and text turn bright; on light whiteboard/canvas backgrounds, they turn dark — always staying legible. (Cards/text with a manually chosen color keep that color as-is!)
• Change the card style 🎭: click the Change style button in the toolbar to give cards and lines a different feel — Classic · Hand-drawn · Modern · Neon · Cotton candy. The style is saved per canvas file, so one mind map can be hand-drawn while another glows in neon.
• Subtle vignette: the edges of the screen darken slightly, helping you focus on the workspace in the center (this is fixed to the screen — it doesn't move around or appear in exports).

Sketch by hand — freehand drawing ✏️

Click the Pen button in the toolbar and a drawing toolbar opens on the left of the screen. Draw and jot notes freely right on top of your cards.

💡 These same pens work inside your note body too — drop a hand-drawing right at the cursor while you write, with inline drawing → 04 Advanced Markdown

• A whole lineup of pens: soft pen, rough pen, liner, flat pen (calligraphy), brush, calligraphy brush, sign pen, pencil, crayon, airbrush, highlighter, and even lasso fill!
• The eraser group 🧽: eraser, smudge, lasso, and eyedropper form their own group, apart from the pens. On desktop and web the four buttons sit side by side; in the phone and tablet apps (inline drawing in notes too) they share one button: tap it to use the tool right away (the eraser at first, then whichever you used last), and tap again while using it — or press and hold — to choose among the four. The pen button works the same way: tap it while erasing and you're back to your pen at once. The tiny triangle in the button's corner means "there's more inside". The eraser and smudge show their size as a circle — briefly in the middle of the screen when you pick them or change the size, and following your pen while you rub.
• Calligraphy brush 🖌️: press hard or go slow for very thick lines, go light and fast for very thin ones, and the ends taper to a point. Fingers and mice have no pressure, so speed alone gives them the contrast. The line you see while drawing is the line that stays when you lift.
• Brushes with personality 🎨: the sign pen has that felt-tip feel — a steady width with ink that subtly bleeds depending on how fast you stroke; the crayon lays down thick, bold lines with a waxy texture (press harder and it gets darker!); the airbrush is a genuine spray effect whose edges spread softly into the distance (how hard you press changes density and spray width from spot to spot — the spread carries over on iPad too!); and smudge rubs colors you've already laid down to blend them airily together. The pencil, crayon and airbrush look the same after you lift as they did while drawing (on sticky notes and PDFs, the texture goes on when you lift).
• The Liner reacts strongly to drawing speed — draw fast for a thin line, draw slow for a thick one. Wrist speed alone gives you calligraphy-like variation in stroke weight. ✒️
• The Pencil adjusts in much finer steps — each notch on the slider moves the width just a little, and even at maximum it tops out at a pleasantly thick pencil. It draws the way graphite catches the high points of paper grain, so edges crumble naturally and the grain stays even when you shade dark. ✏️
  • Stroke speed comes through too: draw fast for thin and pale, slow for thick and dark. At everyday writing speed nothing changes, and strokes you've already drawn stay as they are.
• Color & eyedropper: pick a color from the palette (six slots, in a 3×2 grid of large swatches — folding down to 2 columns on narrow mobile screens) — pick a slot and change its color, and it saves to that slot, building your own custom palette. Use the eyedropper to pull a color straight from a stroke you've already drawn (background color is ignored).
• Drag-and-pour fill (color drop) 🪣: just like Procreate, drag a palette color onto your drawing and any area enclosed by lines fills right in! The fill sits behind the strokes, so the edges stay clean, and it automatically patches small gaps. Drop a different color onto an already-filled area, and only the color changes.
  • Filled areas act as both wall and floor 🧱: draw a shape on top of a filled area and pour color into it, and only that inner part gets refilled — or use the edge of a filled area as a wall to fill the outer region. As long as it's enclosed, whether by shapes or by lines, it fills!
• Write on a PDF 📄✍️: draw on a page of a PDF card and the strokes stick to that page only — flip to another page and they're gone, flip back and they return. You can turn pages with ‹ › while you draw, and the eraser and Undo work as usual. Your handwriting is saved in the mind map file and the original PDF stays untouched. Resize the card and the writing stays put on the page.
• Black and gray ink follows the paper 🌗: it matches the brightness of the paper underneath, not the app theme — light on dark paper, dark on light paper. So writing on a white PDF or a yellow sticky in a dark theme, or on a blackboard background in a light theme, stays readable. PDFs are judged page by page (light ink on a dark slide). Change the sticky color, mind map background or map style and it follows right away, while the color saved in the file stays the same. Other ink colors show exactly as you picked them.
• Adjust thickness & opacity: press and hold the thickness or opacity button at the bottom of the toolbar and rub up or down — a bar appears beside it and adjusts right away (let go to confirm). A quick tap leaves the bar open so you can drag it by hand. You can also shrink and grow the thickness with the [ and ] keys. A circle around your cursor previews the thickness.
• Flat pen angle: pick the flat pen and press the button a second time to adjust the nib's tilt angle (for that calligraphy feel!).
• Much finer pressure and tilt sensitivity ✍️: the pressure from your iPad Apple Pencil, a desktop pen tablet (Wacom, etc.), or an Android S Pen — from a feather-light touch all the way to a firm press — comes through with real range. Each device's pressure characteristics are tuned separately, so even the lightest stroke from any pen stays crisp and doesn't smear. (Two-finger gestures pan/zoom the view.)
  • Pen tilt: holding the pen the way you normally do doesn't count as tilt. Lay the pen down and brush, pencil and crayon go wider — the pencil spreads to about 5 times its usual width while shading paler and sparser, and even a little tilt makes a difference. The pencil knows the direction too: push it sideways for a wide stroke, draw toward the side it leans for a thin one.
  • Handwriting input rests while you draw (iPhone and iPad), so pen strokes don't turn into text. Tap outside the mind map (an input box in the right panel, say) and it's back right away for the keyboard or handwriting; return to the mind map and draw, and it rests again.
• Pen side button = temporary eraser 🧽: hold down the side (barrel) button on a Wacom pen or S Pen while you rub, and it erases immediately without switching tools (let go of the button and you're back to your original pen). The inverted eraser tip on a Wacom pen works the same way.
• Two drawing layers: you can draw on two layers — above and below the cards. Use the two eye buttons in the toolbar to show/hide each one, and click a layer's name to pick which layer you're currently drawing on (pick a hidden layer and it automatically becomes visible again).
• Undo · redo: the top of the drawing toolbar has ↶ Undo · ↷ Redo buttons, so you can cancel and bring back strokes with the hand you're drawing with (⌘Z and a two-finger tap still work too).
• Move the toolbar wherever you like: drag the ⠿ handle at the top of the toolbar to reposition it, or use the minimize button to collapse it (its position is remembered).
  • 📱 On iPhone, the default toolbar is docked at the bottom: icons appear in a neat row along a bottom bar. Tap the small arrow tab above the bar to slide it out of view, leaving just the tab so you can use the canvas at full width (tap again to bring it back — its state is remembered).
• Hold to shape ✨: just like Procreate — draw roughly, then pause without lifting and the stroke settles into a straight line or a smooth curve. Loop around and bring the end back to the start, then pause, and you get a circle or an ellipse ⭕ — a roughly round loop snaps to a true circle, a flat one keeps its proportions and tilt, and the leftover gap closes up. A 'Line'/'Curve'/'Circle'/'Ellipse' badge pops up so you know exactly what changed, and you can keep holding and move to resize — circles and ellipses grow and shrink with the far side pinned in place, keeping their round shape and proportions. Don't like it? One ⌘Z. (Toggle it in the stroke-smoothing popover.)
  • 💡 Magnet only aligns cards — it never touches lines you draw by hand; they stay exactly as drawn.
• Lasso (L) 🪢: the lasso in the eraser group circles strokes to move or delete them together. Lasso fill (F) lives with the drawing tools — it fills the enclosed area with the current color, and the opacity slider applies as-is, so translucent wash effects work too (you'll see a live preview as you lasso). The lasso and drawing tools are mutually exclusive — picking a tool turns the lasso off, and turning on the lasso rests the tool.
  • Once you've selected, a bar with Text · Math · Mind map · AI image appears below the box (only what works on this device). Each one works on just the selected part — AI image sends only that sketch and places the result beside it.
• Tool shortcuts: P = cycle pens · B = brush/calligraphy brush/pencil · S = sign pen · H = highlighter · C = crayon · A = airbrush · E = eraser · R = smudge · I = eyedropper · L = lasso · F = lasso fill. (Press Esc or right-click an empty area to exit.)
• Drawing sounds 🔊: a pencil scratches, a brush swooshes — every tool sounds different. The faster you draw the louder it gets, and it goes quiet when your hand stops. It's very faint, just barely there. It's on by default; turn it off or on with the speaker button on the toolbar (in the phone and tablet apps, it's in the group with stroke smoothing). iPhone and iPad stay silent in silent mode, and the very first stroke after opening the app may be quiet.
• Pages — use it like a notebook 📄: tap Add page on the drawing toolbar (or long-press or right-click an empty spot ▸ Add page) and an A4 sheet appears. If what you've already written fits on one page, it becomes page 1. Flip with ‹ › on the bar at the bottom (PageUp·PageDown), add the next sheet with +, and tap the number for fit this page, show all, save this page as PNG, and delete this page. Deleting a page removes what's on it and pulls the pages below up (one undo brings it all back). PDF export gives one A4 sheet per page — anything outside the pages is left out, so use PNG for the whole map. The sheet's outline is only a guide: you can't tap it and it doesn't export. In Obsidian it shows as a plain group.
  • A page with content on it takes a second press to delete. Files open on page 1, and new pages put the grid in the same place on every page (pages you already made don't move). Inline drawings in notes don't have pages.

Handwriting to text 🔤

Reads what you wrote on the canvas and puts it in a text card right beside it.

• How: Right-click your writing (long press on touch) → 'Recognize handwriting (OCR)'. The text lands in a new card next to it and your writing stays. One undo removes just the card.
• What gets read: only the cluster you pressed. Press an empty spot to read all the handwriting on screen; press a sticky note or a PDF page to read only what's written there. While drawing, select with the lasso, then press Text on the bar below the box (right-clicking or pressing and holding the box works too).
• What does the reading: iPhone and iPad on iOS 27 or later read your strokes directly, on the device, with nothing sent anywhere. Older iOS and Android use the on-device OCR; desktop and web use the AI you've connected. With no AI connected, the web version just shows a notice, and the desktop app tries and then shows a failure message — connect an AI to fix it.

Sketch to mind map 🪄

Turns a mind map you drew by hand into real cards and lines, right where you drew them.

• How: Right-click your writing (long press on touch) → 'Turn sketch into a mind map'. One undo brings your sketch back.
• What becomes what: words become text cards, circles become ellipse cards, boxes become box cards, lines become connectors and arrows stay arrows. Text size follows your writing. Strokes it can't work out stay as they are.
• What gets converted: the connected sketch you pressed. Press an empty spot for all the handwriting on screen; while drawing, only what you selected with the lasso (Mind map on the bar). Handwriting on sticky notes and PDFs isn't converted.
• Where it works: iPhone and iPad on iOS 27 or later. It reads on the device and sends nothing anywhere.
• 💡 If it misread a word, tap that card and fix it. Quick, loose handwriting is easier to misread.

Handwritten formulas into math ✍️

Write a formula the way you would on paper, and a neat math card appears beside it.

• How: right-click the handwriting (press and hold on touch) → 'Convert to math'. The math card lands next to your handwriting, which stays put — side by side, so you can see at a glance whether it was read correctly.
• If it's wrong: undo to remove the card, write a little more neatly and try again. On a device that reads it on-device, if you've also connected an AI, 'Read more accurately with AI' is in the menu too (the picture of your handwriting goes to that AI).
• Which devices: iOS, iPadOS and macOS 27 or later with Apple Intelligence turned on read it on the device — nothing leaves it. On other devices the menu appears only when an AI is connected.
• Formulas with words: if words in other scripts are mixed in, on-device reading often gets them wrong. Use 'Recognize handwriting (OCR)' or your connected AI.

Math in cards · drawing graphs 📈

• Write $$y=x^2-1$$ (large) or $\pi r^2$ (inline) in a card and it shows as math — in PNG and SVG exports too.
• Right-click a card whose whole text is a formula (plain y=2x+1 works too) → 'Draw as graph', and a graph card appears beside it. You can draw formulas with one variable, like y=x²-1, y=sin x, f(x)=3x-2 or x=3. Double-click a graph card to open it as text, then change the formula after "fn".

Sketch → AI image 🎨✨

Turn a rough sketch into a finished picture drawn by AI! It keeps your composition, pose, and layout, so you can get the scene you want regardless of drawing skill.

• How to open: on a canvas with drawings, right-click an empty spot (long-press on touch) → 'Draw from sketch (AI)…'. While drawing, select with the lasso and press AI image on the bar to send only that sketch; the finished picture lands beside it too.
• Draw from a card's text 🃏: no sketch needed — right-click a card with text (long-press on touch) → 'Draw from card (AI)…'. The same window opens with the card's text already in the description box. Add a style ("watercolor", etc.) and press [Generate] — the picture is attached as an image card on that card's branch (to the right), joined by an arrow. Handy for turning character or place cards into pictures one by one.
• Draw on the device, no key — Apple Intelligence 🍎: on an iPhone or iPad with Apple Intelligence on, press and hold (or right-click) a text card → 'Create image from card' — Apple's Image Playground starts drawing from the card's text, and the picture you pick is attached next to the card as an image card joined by an arrow. It's drawn on your device, so there's no key and no fee. If the button doesn't show up, see → 03 Markdown Basics
• Pick your options: the model — 6 of them (🍌 Nano Banana 2 · 🍌 Nano Banana (both Gemini) · GPT Image 2.5 Flare (fast) · GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (more precise but slower) · GPT Image 2 · GPT Image 1), the size (square, landscape, portrait — the aspect ratio applies to every model!), the quality (gpt-image only: Low (cheap) / Medium / High (costly) — pick GPT Image 2.5 and X-High / Max open up too; higher costs more), plus a request ("in watercolor style", "night background", etc.) — then hit Generate!
• The finished image is saved to assets/ and dropped onto the canvas as an image card. Your sketch stays untouched, so feel free to generate several versions and compare.
• 🔑 You'll need a chat API key (Gemini or OpenAI) → 16-9 AI Billing Guide (Subscriptions vs Credits). If you use the AI agent on desktop, the Send to AI agent button lets you refine it conversationally ("make it bluer!").

💡 This works exactly the same in inline drawings inside your notes — right-click the drawing pad, or right-click a saved drawing image → 'Draw from sketch (AI)…'. The finished picture is inserted into the note right below the drawing. → 04 Advanced Markdown

Map mode — draw on a grid 🗺️

Need a game map, dungeon, floor plan, or village map? Turn on map mode with the Map draw button (right next to the drawing button) and the canvas becomes a tiled grid map board.

• Five styles (default 📜 · grid paper 📘 · marker board 🖍️ · RPG illustration 🌿 · old map 🪶), a 20-terrain brush and fill, walls/doors/secret doors with auto-wall, a track tool connecting roads, rails and rivers (stations go down with the train station stamp!), 41 stamps with note links, and sticky memos — the full guide lives in its own chapter! → Map Drawing
• Turn on map mode in a new mind map and the untouched starter card ('Start your mindmap — …') is cleared away on its own, so it doesn't cover your map.
• The map is saved with the canvas file and included in PNG/SVG exports and the minimap too.

Drawable memo pads — sticky notes 🟨

• A sticky note is a "memo pad" you can freely draw on and erase. Rotate or resize a note, and whatever's drawn inside it changes right along with it.
• Drawing that starts on top of a note stays with the note; drawing that starts on the background stays only on the background.

Turn arrows into real relations — ontology links 🧩

If you've drawn an arrow between two note cards, you can make that arrow a recorded relation, not just a picture.

• Select the arrow and a relation button appears in the inspector (only for note↔note arrows). Press it and predicate suggestions pop up — ranked from your relation dictionary and what your vault actually uses. Pick one and the source note's properties get predicate: "[[target]]", with the predicate written on the arrow's label too. Not in the dictionary? Use "Type your own…".
• From that moment the relation shows up in the Connections panel, Graph view, and Bases rollups. The structure you drew on canvas becomes your semantic network.
• Notes that are already related connect themselves — place two related notes on a canvas and a faint dashed line with the predicate appears automatically (display only — never saved to the file, never exported). Draw a real arrow and the dashed one steps aside.
• Recording is one-way: the note owns the relation, so deleting the arrow keeps the relation (tidy up in the Connections panel). Text and shape cards have no properties, so they're not eligible.
• Auto Mindmap understands relations too — notes referenced by the center note's relation properties (author, parent_area, etc.) are laid out as cards, connected with dashed lines + predicate labels (body links stay solid arrows). Run it on an Area note with "Include notes pointing here" on and every project pointing at that area unfolds at once — an instant PARA map.

Pin things down 📌

• Turn on Pin mode and double-click an empty spot (double-tap on mobile) to drop a pin. Pins always render at the same size, regardless of zoom.
• Right-click drag from one pin to another (on touch, long-press a pin and then drag) to create a straight line connecting them. Both pins and lines can have their color changed.

Export it beautifully 📸

• Turn your carefully-crafted mind map into all kinds of formats! Export as PNG (transparent background) · JPG (background included) · SVG · PDF · copy to clipboard · or a screenshot. On iPhone, it's saved straight into the vault.
• Rotated cards, pretty shapes, plain text, and even your hand-drawn strokes — everything gets captured in full quality, without exception.
  • When you export to PNG, JPG or PDF, a PDF card carries the page you're on (and the writing on that page).
  • If you've made pages, PDF gives one A4 sheet per page (anything outside the pages is left out), and the export menu gains 'Save this page as PNG'.
  • The background of JPG, PDF and SVG is the app theme's background color, not the mind map background you picked (corkboard, blackboard and so on). Black and gray ink is matched to that background too.

More ways to use it — ideas for the infinite canvas 🎨

It's called a "mind map," but really it's an infinite canvas for laying out anything. Here are some other things you can build with the same tools.

🖼️ Moodboard

• Drag in images that inspire you (drag-and-drop or paste) and arrange them freely. → Image cards come in clean, with no frame, and can even rotate, so you can overlap them at an angle for a collage look! (No photos handy? Drag them straight in from the Image Search panel → A Tour of the Screen)
• Change the background to corkboard, blackboard, etc., group things into clusters by mood using groups, and scatter keywords with frameless labels — and your moodboard is complete!
• Organize color palettes and tones with shapes and color, then export it as an image to share once you're done.

✏️ Idea Sketch

• Quickly jot down what's on your mind with freehand drawing (pencil, brush, pen). Organize it later! → See "Sketch by hand — freehand drawing" above.
• Jot handwritten notes on sticky notes and spread them out, rotating and moving as you go. Throw down cards, shapes, and arrows as ideas come to you, and refine them later.

🕸️ Network Graph

• Draw a network of people, concepts, or events by treating cards as nodes and arrows as relationships. Just pull a port from one card to another to connect them!
• Put actual notes onto the graph as note cards (files), and you get a "living" graph you can click straight into.
• Want to auto-expand a note's [[link]] relationships? Use the Auto Mind Map button! You can also view your whole vault's network as a constellation in Graph View.

🧠 Concept Map

• Where a mind map goes "center → branches," a concept map is a web that connects concept to concept with named relationships.
• Connect cards (concepts) with arrows, and attach a label to each connecting line (e.g., "includes," "causes") to make the meaning crystal clear! If there's a hierarchy, arranging things top-to-bottom makes it easier to read.
• For more rigorous, typed structuring, pair it with ontology on the note side. → Structuring Knowledge

💡 Whatever the purpose, it's fast to ask the AI Agent to sketch a first draft: "Make me a moodboard/network/concept map from this material" → Recipes by Scenario

Keep this in mind! 💡

• Plain text and shape nodes are ambitious features ObsiKO built on its own, and they're not yet part of Obsidian's standard Canvas syntax. So don't be surprised if they don't show up when opened in Obsidian!
• Cards holding notes or images are saved by their place inside the vault (a relative path). So even if you move the vault folder somewhere else or open it in Obsidian, the cards stay connected.
• You can also ask the smart AI Agent to draw you a mind map. Pretty neat, right? → AI Agent
  • The AI writes only the content (what connects to what); when the map first opens, ObsiKO fits the cards to their text, spreads them out without overlaps and colors each branch. If you later ask it to "add more branches", only the new cards are placed in free space and cards you moved stay put (if you haven't moved anything, the whole map is realigned with the new branches).
• And the reverse works too: draw a canvas and have the AI build folders and organize files to match! Sketch the structure or work order and just say "do it according to this canvas" → AI Agent

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