PNG, SVG or PDF: which export to pick
Choose PNG when the image is going somewhere that only takes pictures — a slide, a chat message, a ticket, a README. The scale setting multiplies the pixel size: 1× matches the canvas's own coordinates, 2× is the right default for anything viewed on a high-density laptop or phone screen, and 3× or 4× is for zooming in on a dense board or printing it large. The pixel dimensions are shown before you download, so there are no surprises.
Choose SVG when the board needs to stay sharp at any size or be edited afterwards. An SVG is vector: text stays text and lines stay lines, so it scales without blurring and opens in Figma, Inkscape, Illustrator or a browser. It is also the one format with no size ceiling, which makes it the fallback for very large canvases.
Choose PDF for printing, attaching to an email, or handing to someone who will open it in a document viewer. There are two routes. Download PDF produces a one-page PDF sized exactly to the canvas in one click, with the board embedded as a high-resolution image. Print / vector PDF opens your browser's print dialog on a page sized to the canvas; choosing Save as PDF there keeps the text as real, selectable, searchable text.
What the export shows — and what it can't
Text cards are rendered from their Markdown: headings, bold and italic, inline code and fenced code blocks, bulleted and numbered lists, task checkboxes, block quotes and callout titles, highlights, strikethrough, and internal links shown by their display text. Anything the renderer doesn't recognise is kept as literal text rather than dropped. Text that overflows a card is clipped at the card's edge, the same way the card looks when it is not scrolled.
File cards are the honest limitation. A file card stores only a path into your vault, such as Projects/Launch/Brief.md, not the note or image itself, and this tool never receives your vault. So file cards are drawn as labelled cards showing the file name, its folder and whether it is a note, image, PDF or other file, rather than an invented preview. If an embedded note's contents matter to the picture, convert that card's text into a text card in Obsidian before exporting, or export from inside Obsidian where the vault is available.
Link cards show the site's domain and the full URL. Groups are drawn as tinted containers with their label above the top-left corner, and edges are drawn from the side of each card the file specifies, with arrowheads at whichever ends the file asks for and their labels on top.
Colours, themes and backgrounds
JSON Canvas stores a colour either as a preset number from 1 to 6 or as a hex value. The spec deliberately leaves the presets undefined so each app can use its own shades; this exporter maps them to red, orange, yellow, green, cyan and purple in that order, matching the order Obsidian's colour picker uses, and draws hex colours exactly as written.
The light and dark themes change the card, text and background colours while keeping card colours recognisable, so a board you built in Obsidian's dark mode can be exported to match. Transparent background removes the page colour from PNG and SVG exports so the board sits cleanly on a coloured slide; the dot grid option adds the familiar canvas dots behind the cards when you want the export to read as a canvas rather than a diagram.
Exporting a very large canvas at full resolution
Browsers cap how big a single image they will draw — typically around 16,000 pixels on a side, and much less total area on phones and tablets. A sprawling canvas at 4× can exceed that. When it does, this tool automatically lowers the scale to the largest size your browser will actually produce and tells you the exact pixel size it saved, rather than handing you a blank or corrupted file.
If you need more detail than that, download the SVG instead: it has no pixel limit and can be rasterised at any size later. Another practical option is to export one region at a time — duplicate the canvas in Obsidian, delete everything outside the group you care about, and export that smaller file.
Sharing a canvas with people who don't use Obsidian
An image is a snapshot, which is often exactly right: a status board for a meeting, a mind map for a class, a diagram for documentation. Anyone can open a PNG or PDF, and nobody needs a vault, a plugin or an account to look at it.
When the other person needs to read the cards closely rather than glance at a picture, the free JSON Canvas viewer (linked below) opens the same file with pan and zoom in any browser. And when the board should keep evolving — edited from your phone, shared, or grown past what fits in one vault — the button under the exporter moves your cards onto an OmniCanvas note, with groups kept as columns and connections listed.