Draw in Canvas

Draw, sketch, and handwrite directly on top of Obsidian Canvas files.

Draw in Canvas adds a lightweight drawing layer to .canvas files while keeping the normal JSON Canvas data intact.

Features

• Draw on Canvas: Add freehand strokes directly on top of Obsidian .canvas files.
• Mouse, touch, and stylus support: Draw with normal pointer input; stylus pressure is used when available.
• Brush controls: Pick color, size, opacity, and hardness from controls beside the canvas.
• Optional handwriting smoothing: Enable smoother, tapered strokes when you want handwriting-style lines.
• Edit after drawing: Select strokes to move, resize, recolor, restyle, or delete them.
• Multi-select: Use marquee selection or Shift / Ctrl / Cmd to work with several strokes at once.
• Undo and redo: Drawing actions work with standard shortcuts and the Canvas Undo / Redo buttons.
• Saved in the canvas file: Drawings are stored in the same .canvas file under drawInCanvas.
• Local-only: No network requests or external services.

Other

• Adds a pencil button to the Canvas toolbar and drawing controls on the left.
• Esc leaves drawing mode, 1 returns to select mode, and Delete / Backspace removes selected strokes.
• The color picker includes presets, recent colors, hex input, and HSL/RGB/Lab controls. Use what you need; ignore the rest.
• Allow tiny canvas items is optional. Enable it only if you need very small cards/drawings, closer zoom, quick scale/layer controls, or stable card layering while selecting overlapping cards.
• Large canvases should stay usable, but very dense drawings can still affect performance.
• Obsidian can still open the canvas without this plugin, but plugin drawings are only visible when Draw in Canvas is enabled.

Settings

• Stroke color: Default color for new strokes. Accepts CSS colors such as #ff5a5f, red, or rgb(255, 90, 95).
• Stroke width: Default width for new freehand strokes.
• Stroke hardness: Softens stroke edges like brush hardness.
• Stroke opacity: Controls stroke transparency.
• Handwritten strokes: Enables smoother, pressure-aware strokes with tapered starts and ends.
• Pen cursor fallback: Shows a plugin cursor while drawing with a stylus when the native cursor is hidden or unreliable.
• Allow tiny canvas items: Lowers Obsidian's native Canvas size limit, enables closer zoom, adds quick scale/layer controls, and keeps selected cards at their saved layer instead of temporarily bringing them to front.

📜 License

MIT License - see LICENSE.

🙏 Credits

• perfect-freehand for the handwritten stroke algorithm.
• Obsidian Canvas and JSON Canvas for the canvas format this plugin extends.