Capture: Canvas Capture

You end up with a Capture choice that writes into an Obsidian Canvas: either the card you have selected on the board, or one specific card in a .canvas file you name ahead of time.

Prerequisites

• An Obsidian Canvas file. Canvas is built into Obsidian, so there is no plugin to install.

When to use this

Use Canvas capture when your workflow starts in a visual board, but you still want QuickAdd’s capture formats, variables, and hotkeys.

Good fits:

• Add a timestamped note to a selected brainstorming card.
• Append a task to a project card.
• Send repeated updates to one known Canvas card.

Capture to the selected card

1. Create a Capture choice.
2. Enable Capture to active file.
3. Open a Canvas file.
4. Select exactly one supported card.
5. Set Write position to Top of file (after frontmatter), Bottom of file, or After line… / Before line….
6. Run the Capture choice.

Supported selected-card targets:

• Text cards
• File cards that point to Markdown files

QuickAdd aborts with a notice if no card is selected, multiple cards are selected, or the selected card is unsupported.

Capture to a specific card

1. Create a Capture choice.
2. Turn off Capture to active file.
3. Set Capture to to a .canvas file.
4. Choose Target canvas node.
5. Pick the card you want QuickAdd to write to.
6. Set a supported write position.

This is the best option for repeatable workflows where every capture should go to the same Canvas card.

Write position support

Canvas capture supports these write positions:

• Top of file (shown as Top of file (after frontmatter) when Capture to active file is enabled)
• Bottom of file
• After line…
• Before line…

Canvas capture does not support cursor-based write positions:

• At cursor
• New line above cursor
• New line below cursor

If Capture to active file is enabled and the write position is still At cursor, QuickAdd aborts instead of writing to the wrong place.

Link-to-captured-file behavior

When Link to captured file is set to Enabled (requires active file) and capture runs from a Canvas card without a focused Markdown editor, the capture still writes. QuickAdd skips link insertion because there is no active Markdown file to link from.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Capture aborts before writing	No card or multiple cards are selected	Select exactly one supported card
Capture aborts with cursor-position wording	The write mode is cursor-based	Use top, bottom, after-line, or before-line placement
Nothing is written to a file card	The file card points to a non-Markdown file	Use a Markdown file card or a text card
The target picker is not shown	Capture target is not a .canvas file	Set Capture to to the Canvas file path

Related docs

• Capture Choices
• Format Syntax
• Template: Create an MOC Note with a Link Dashboard