Namapu Help

Contents

• The starting map
• Creating cards
• Lining things up
• Selecting multiple cards
• Tidying up a layout (Arrange)
• Connecting cards
• Styling what you selected
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Drawing by hand
  • The tools
  • Colour, thickness and fill
  • The page
  • On the board
• Boards, images & pinning to back
• Your maps: where each one lives
• Getting a map out: pictures, text and files
• AI Assist
• Installing Namapu & working offline
• Sharing a map publicly
• Presentation Slides Mode
  • Building the deck
  • Presenting
  • Presentation settings
• Editing text with Markdown
  • Bold, italic, strikethrough
  • Line breaks
  • Superscript / subscript
  • Inline code
  • Code block
  • Headers
  • Lists
  • Links (including spatial navigation)
  • Tables
  • Task lists
  • Horizontal rule

The starting map

• The map you land on when you first open Namapu is an example, not a template - edit it, rearrange it, or delete every card and start blank. Nothing about it is special once you touch it.
• Deleted it, or want to see it again? Open the welcome map loads a fresh copy as a new document, named "Welcome" - it never touches whatever you're working on now.

Creating cards

• Tap + in the bottom toolbar to add a new card or shape. The panel holds cards and text alongside twenty-four shapes - a right and a left arrow, a double arrow, and chevrons, the flowchart set (diamond, hexagon, parallelogram), the 3D set (cylinder, cube, cone, pyramid), emphasis shapes like a star or a banner, and speech and thought bubbles for comments. Every shape is an ordinary item: it takes text, colour and a border, rotates, connects and presents exactly as a card does. Scroll the panel if your screen is short - the shapes carry on below the fold.
• Select a single arrow (right, left, or double), chevron, or banner to reveal two small diamond-shaped handles alongside its usual resize and rotate handles. On an arrow, one handle changes the pointer's size, the other the shaft's thickness. On a chevron or banner, the two handles are its point/notch depths - hold Alt (Option on Mac) while dragging either one to move both together, keeping the shape symmetric.
• Select a card to reveal small + handles on its edges - tap one to add a connected child (mindmap-style) card instantly.
• Double-tap (or double-click) any card to open its text editor and start writing.
• From the main menu, Import outline… turns a typed or pasted outline into a whole branch of connected cards at once - each level becomes a child card, laid out automatically. It reads an indented list, Markdown bullets (-, *, numbered), Markdown headings (#, ##) and OPML exported from another outliner or mind-mapper - it works out which one you pasted and says so above the preview. A line indented under a bullet joins that card as the rest of its text rather than becoming a card of its own.
• You don't have to paste: Choose file… in that dialog opens a .md, .opml or .txt file, and you can drag one straight onto the dialog instead. Either way the file lands in the box first, so you can read it - and edit it - before anything is created. Nothing appears on the canvas until you press Import, and one Undo removes the whole import again.

Lining things up

Two independent checkboxes in the main menu's Appearance section help you arrange cards neatly by hand. Each can be used on its own or together, and both are remembered next time you open Namapu.

• Show grid and snap to it draws a faint dot grid on the canvas, and pulls dragged and resized items onto that grid once they get close. Moving a card snaps its position; resizing snaps just the edge or corner handle you're pulling.
• Alignment guides (on by default) works against the other cards rather than the grid: drag a card and a thin magenta line appears whenever its edges or centre line up with a neighbour's, pulling it into place. Resizing does the same for whichever edge or corner you're pulling, so you can match one card's width or height to another. Line up three or more cards with even gaps between them and you'll also see the matching gaps marked, so you can space a row or column by eye.

Hold Alt while dragging or resizing to move completely freely for that one action - no grid, no guides - without having to turn anything off.

These are all editing aids: they never appear in Present mode, or for someone viewing a shared read-only map.

On a touch screen every button in the app is sized to at least 44px, the size a fingertip can hit reliably, and each one carries a spoken label for screen readers. On a desktop the toolbars keep their tighter spacing - the change follows the input device, not the window size.

Selecting multiple cards

• Drag a rectangle over empty canvas (or shift-click cards one by one) to select several at once.
• Ctrl+A (Cmd+A on Mac) selects every card currently visible in the view; Ctrl+Shift+A (Cmd+Shift+A) selects every card in the whole map, including ones off-screen.
• Dragging any card in the selection moves all of them together, by the same amount.
• Resizing any card in the selection (via its corner/edge handles) resizes every selected card by that same amount too - each keeps its own size and aspect ratio, just larger or smaller.

Tidying up a layout (Arrange)

Select something eligible and a branching-icon Tidy/Arrange button appears in the item toolbar, opening a popup of layout modes. What it offers depends on what's selected - the two groups of modes don't overlap:

• A single card with children (a mindmap branch): the seven tree modes. Up/Down/Left/Right fan the whole branch out from that card in the chosen direction. Circular, Circular (sequential) and Circular (tapered) arrange it on rings around the card instead - the first arranges each ring symmetrically, the second places siblings one after another a fixed angle apart, and the third (experimental) shrinks both the cards and their font size a bit further out on each ring, so the center card stays biggest and rings sit closer together the smaller they get.
• Two or more selected cards with no branch relationship between them, or a single selected Board: the five flat modes - Grid, Packed, Row, Column and Circular. There's no one card here to fan out from or centre rings on, so these work on the group as a whole instead: Grid lines everything up in even rows and columns, sized to the largest item. Packed fits items of different sizes together more snugly, trending toward a square-ish cluster rather than one long strip. Row and Column line the group up in a single gapped line, centred on the group's own midpoint. Circular spaces the group evenly around one ring, sized so nothing overlaps. Applying any of the five to a board's contents also resizes the board to fit the new layout, in the same step.
• A single numeric field (blank = automatic) appears for every mode, relabelling itself for whichever one you pick: Spacing for Up/Down/Left/Right/Grid/Packed/Row/Column (the gap between cards), Radius for Circular, Circular (tapered) and Circular's flat counterpart (how far out the first ring sits), and Rotation for Circular (sequential) (the angle from each card to the next). The -/+/auto buttons beside it step the value without needing to type, and auto clears it back to the mode's own default.
• Every mode applies as a single undo step, and the popup stays open afterward so you can try another mode - or just adjust Rotation - without reopening it.

Connecting cards

• Tap Connect (the arrow icon) in the toolbar, or press N, then drag from one card to another to draw a connection between them.
• To connect one card to several others in a row, select it first and tap Connect from this card (or press F) instead - it stays armed after each connection, so you can click/drag onto one child after another without reopening the toolbar. Tap the button again, press Esc, or change the selection to stop.
• Connections you draw this way, and the ones created by the + handles, can be restyled (colour, thickness, arrowheads) from the line properties panel once selected.
• To restyle several connections at once - handy on a phone, where picking one thin line out from under its cards is fiddly - select the cards at both ends instead and tap Connection lines (the link icon) in the bottom toolbar. It shows up whenever the selection includes at least one full connection between two selected cards, and restyles all of them together.

Styling what you selected

Select something and the bottom toolbar offers its style panels.

• Colour (the filled circle) sets the fill. The dashed ✕ swatch means no fill at all.
• Font (Aa) holds everything about the text, in three rows: the typeface; H-Align and V-Align; then Style and Size. It only appears for things that have text - a drawing, an image or a connection hides it.
• Style is abbreviated to N, B and I - normal, bold and italic, each button drawn in the style it applies. Size is A-, Def and A+: one step smaller, back to the default size, one step larger. Hover any of them for the full name.
• The line button (the diagonal stroke) opens whichever panel fits what you have selected: a connection gets colour, thickness and arrowhead direction; a card or board gets its frame thickness and corner rounding; a drawing gets the panel described below.
• Every one of these panels has a pin in its top corner. Unpinned, the panel closes as soon as you pick an option - good for a single change. Pinned, it stays open so you can try several in a row. The x beside it closes the panel, as does Escape.
• The floating toolbar above a selected card also has Duplicate (or press D with a card selected - it's the draw-mode shortcut when nothing's selected, and duplicate when something is).

Keyboard shortcuts

Most buttons show their own one-key shortcut in their tooltip - hover any of them to check. This page collects the full set in one place. None of them fire while you're typing in a card or a dialog.

General

Styling a selection

While drawing

The pen tools below reuse some of the same letters as the panels above (L, E) - Draw mode owns the keyboard while it's active, so there's no clash.

With Cmd/Ctrl or Alt

Drawing by hand

Tap the pen in the bottom toolbar (or press D) to draw directly on the board - no separate window. The rest of the map dims so your ink stays legible over it; press Done or Esc when you're finished.

Double-click an existing drawing (or select it and tap the pen) to draw into it again - new marks join the same item rather than starting a new one.

The tools

Every tool has a one-key shortcut, shown in its tooltip, and a second row of its own colour/thickness/fill options appears under the tools while it's active.

• Pen (P) draws freehand. Highlighter (H) draws a wide translucent stroke that always stays behind your ink.
• Line (L) drags from start to end. Hold Shift to snap the angle to 15° steps.
• Rectangle (R) and Ellipse (O) drag corner to corner. Hold Shift for a perfect square or circle.
• Eraser (E) removes whole marks you drag across, even across several different drawings in one go - the entire drag undoes in one step.
• Select (V) picks one mark at a time: click it to select, drag to move it, Delete to remove it.

Colour, thickness and fill

• Each tool's row sets the colour and thickness it draws with next.
• Pressure, in the Pen's row (on by default), lets a stylus vary the width as you press - lean harder for a fatter line. A mouse, a finger and the highlighter all draw at a constant width regardless.
• Rectangle and Ellipse add a Fill swatch for the inside of the shape, and Rectangle adds corner rounding.
• Undo and Redo (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Shift+Z) step through your marks one at a time - each mark is its own undo step the moment you finish drawing it.

The page

• A drawing's page starts out the size of whatever the board viewport shows when you begin, and grows automatically whenever a mark reaches its edge - you never run out of room mid-stroke.
• Once you press Done, the page shrinks back down to fit just what you drew, so a small mark doesn't leave a huge invisible box behind it.
• The eye button hides every card and object while you draw, leaving just your ink - handy when they're in the way. Off by default; turning it off again brings the dimmed map back.
• Scroll to zoom, pinch or drag with two fingers to zoom and pan while drawing - the same gestures the board itself uses.
• Starting a second finger mid-stroke abandons that stroke and turns the gesture into pan/zoom, so a stray touch never leaves a mark.
• While a stylus is on the screen, touches are ignored altogether - you can rest your hand on the page and draw over it, and the hand neither marks the page nor pans it.

On the board

• With a drawing selected, the selection toolbar carries the drawing's own actions: the pen button re-enters draw mode on it, and Color restyles the whole drawing at once.
• The line button opens the drawing's panel: Thickness restyles every stroke, Frame shows or hides a card-style border around it when it is not selected, On top keeps it above everything else on the board, and ↺ 1:1 undoes any stretching by scaling it back to a square.
• The aspect ratio button in the selection toolbar locks the drawing's proportions while you resize. Resizing scales the line thickness along with the drawing.
• Clicks only land on the drawing where you actually drew - the empty space inside its frame passes through to whatever is behind it.

Boards, images & pinning to back

Add a Board or an Image from the shapes panel to group cards visually or drop in a reference picture. Both always render behind cards, so they never block your content.

• Pin to back: select a board or image and use the Pin button in the selection toolbar to drop it behind connection lines too, so lines between cards stay visible even when they cross over it. New boards and newly imported images are pinned by default; click the button again to unpin.
• Moving a pinned board carries along any cards resting on top of it, like a physical surface - handy for repositioning a whole grouped area at once.
• Rotating a pinned board (from the selection toolbar's Rotate popup, or by dragging its rotate handle) turns its cards along with it too, orbiting them around the board's centre as if the whole thing were one grouped symbol.
• Moving or rotating an unpinned board leaves cards where they are, so you can nudge or turn the frame itself without disturbing what's on it.
• Image properties: double-click a selected image to open its panel. Crop, Remove color and Replace sit at the top, with the aspect-ratio controls under them; the image's title and alt text are folded into Title & description, which you can open when you need it. Close the panel with the x at its top-right, or Escape.

Your maps: where each one lives

Every map can exist in two places - in this browser on this device, and in the cloud under your account. The badge beside each map in the file manager (Open) says which copy is the up-to-date one.

Renaming counts as a change like any other, because the name travels with the map to the cloud.

If a map has been edited in both places, you'll see Cloud newer - that's the warning worth acting on first, since saving over it from here would discard the work done elsewhere.

Getting a map out: pictures, text and files

Export… in the main menu is where a map leaves Namapu - as a picture, as slides, as an outline you can paste into a document, or as a file you keep.

A picture (PNG, JPEG or SVG)

Choose what to draw - the current view, the whole map, or just the selection - then the size (1×, 2× or 3×) and the background. Handles, toolbars and the selection outline are never in the picture; a collapsed branch stays collapsed, exactly as you see it.

• Page colour matches the colour scheme you're using; Transparent (PNG and SVG - JPEG can't do it) is the one to pick when the picture is going onto a coloured slide.
• SVG is the third format, and a different kind of file: it has no size to choose, because it stays sharp at any size, and its text is still real text you can select and search. Every browser opens it; some drawing apps (Inkscape among them) show only its background, so pick PNG when the picture is headed for one of those.
• The line under the choices tells you how many pixels you'll get before you export. Very large maps are reduced to a size the browser can actually draw, and it says so when that happens.

Slides, as a PDF

If the map has a deck - slide frames, or numbered items - Export slides writes it as a PDF, one page per slide, in the order Present mode plays them.

• 16:9 or 4:3 gives every page the same shape, whatever size the frames were drawn at; Slide shape keeps each frame's own proportions instead. A slide narrower than the page gets background at the sides - nothing is ever cut off.
• Pages use the Size and Background chosen above, and a page is always solid: paper has nothing behind it, so Transparent comes out white.
• The map on screen doesn't move while the PDF is made, and the button counts the pages as it goes. The PDF is saved to your downloads (on a phone, to Files) rather than opened - open it from there.

An outline (Markdown or OPML)

A map is also a list, and Export outline writes it as one - either a .md file of nested bullets, which a document, a README or a ticket can read, or an .opml file, which is what other outliners and mind-mappers open.

• Whole map writes every card; Selection writes just what you've selected and everything hanging off it, so you can take one branch out on its own.
• Markdown is the one to paste into something else; OPML is the one to open in another app, and the only one of the two that remembers which branches were collapsed.
• Cards are nested the way they're connected, and ordered the way they sit on the canvas - top to bottom. A card with no connections is a bullet of its own.
• The line above the button says what you'll get before you write it, including anything that can't come along: drawings, boards and images have no text, so they aren't in the file, and a card connected to two parents is written under the first one only.
• The text you typed is kept exactly as it is - a card's own bold, links and lists come out unchanged - and importing the file back gives you the same outline again.

A map file

A map can also live as a file on your own disk - your backup, and the way to move a map between two browsers, or to hand it to someone else, without an account.

• Export map file saves the open map as a .namapu.json file wherever your browser puts downloads. It saves the map exactly as it is right now; it doesn't change or move the map you're working on.
• Import map file… opens one back up. It always arrives as a new map - it never merges into what you have open, and never overwrites a map of the same name (you'd get "Project plan 2").
• An imported map starts out on this device only. Save it to the cloud yourself if you want it there - importing a file someone sent you never touches their copy, and never touches your account.

Everything is in the file: every card, drawing, image, connection and slide number. Exporting today and importing next year gives you the same map back. That's the difference between this and the outline above: an outline is the text of your map, and doesn't carry where anything sits, what colour it is, or which branches were collapsed - a map file carries all of it.

AI Assist

AI Assist… in the main menu asks Claude to write a branch for you, three ways - a topic in, or a card you've selected in, and a tree of cards out, placed and connected the same way a paste into Import outline would be.

• The first time you open it, you'll be asked for your own Anthropic API key - get one at console.anthropic.com. It's used only from this browser, straight to Anthropic: Namapu never sees it, and it's never saved to the cloud or included in anything you export. Requests are billed to your own Anthropic account, not to Namapu. Change API key at the top of the dialog swaps it for a different one at any time.
• Generate - type what a whole new branch should be about and press Generate. What comes back is added as new cards at the centre of your view, laid out automatically.
• Expand - select a card first (its whole existing branch goes with it), then press Add more. The new cards join whatever children that card already had - nothing existing is moved, renamed or replaced.
• Summarize - select a card, then press Summarize to add one new card holding a short summary of everything under it - useful before presenting a branch, or just to see the shape of it at a glance.
• Selecting more than one card runs Expand or Summarize on each of them separately, so a card only ever sees its own branch, never another one's.
• Every action is one Undo away from gone, whichever tab made it.
• If a request fails - a rejected key, a slow connection, Claude declining to answer - you'll see a plain sentence explaining why, and nothing is created.

Installing Namapu & working offline

Namapu can be installed like an app - its own icon, its own window, no browser address bar.

• iPhone / iPad: open namapu.com in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
• Android: open the browser menu and choose Install app (or Add to Home screen).
• Desktop Chrome or Edge: click the install icon at the right-hand end of the address bar.

Once you've opened Namapu online at least once, it works without a connection - on a plane, in a basement, or on a tablet that's dropped off the wifi. Launch it and your maps open and edit exactly as usual; everything you type is saved on the device as you go.

What still needs a connection: signing in, To cloud, opening a map that's only in the cloud, and publishing or updating a share link. Those report a normal error while you're offline and work again once you're back - nothing you've written is lost in the meantime, because the copy on this device was saved first.

When a new version of Namapu has been published, a small A new version of Namapu is ready bar appears at the bottom of the screen. Reload switches to it straight away; Later keeps the version you're using until you next open the app, so it can't interrupt what you're in the middle of.

Sharing a map publicly

Signed in, any map you've saved to the cloud can be published as a read-only link anyone can open - no account needed on their end.

• Open the file manager (Open), select the map, and click Share.
• Publish makes a snapshot of the map's current cloud-saved state and gives you a link. It does not keep updating live - keep editing and saving as usual, then click Update public copy whenever you want the link to reflect your latest changes.
• Copy link puts the share URL on your clipboard.
• Make private deletes the public copy immediately; the link stops working right away.

A visitor with the link can pan, zoom, and step through slides, but can't edit the map - it opens straight into read-only view, the same mode the Q key toggles while editing your own maps.

Presentation Slides Mode

Turn any part of your map into a slide deck and present it full-screen, with the camera panning and zooming smoothly from slide to slide - no separate export step.

Building the deck

There is one deck, and it is simply the items you have numbered - a Slide Frame you drew, a card, a board, an image, in whatever mix you like. Open the Slides panel (the camera icon at the right end of the bottom toolbar) to see the whole list in order.

• Open the ＋ panel and add a Slide Frame - a dashed 16:9 rectangle. It becomes the next slide the moment you drop it; drag it over the content for that slide and resize it like any shape (its proportions stay locked to 16:9 unless you toggle the Aspect Ratio button in the selection toolbar to make it freeform).
• Capture current view, at the bottom of the Slides panel, adds a frame matching exactly what you are looking at right now - same shape, same edges - and appends it to the deck. Use it when the composition is already on screen and you would rather not draw the box by hand.
• Number what is already there instead of drawing frames: select any unlocked item and click its # action in the selection toolbar. Click again to remove it.
• Faster for a lot of cards: click the # button in the bottom toolbar (no selection needed) to turn on quick-numbering mode, then click cards one after another - each click adds a card to the deck, or removes it if it is already numbered. The mode stays on until you click the button again or press Escape, so a whole map's worth of cards is one continuous run of clicks. A small number badge shows on each card while the mode is on.
• The numbers are always 1, 2, 3 … - no gaps. Remove slide 2 of five and the rest close up; Ctrl+Z puts every number back exactly as it was.
• From the panel: click a row's name to rename it, use the up/down arrows to reorder, the ⤢ button to jump the camera to it, and the bin to remove it from the deck. Removing a row never deletes the item - the card or frame stays on the map, just unnumbered. To get rid of a frame for good, delete it on the canvas like any other shape.
• Renaming is safe on a card. A card's text is its whole content, so a rename edits only its first line and leaves the rest untouched. A frame's name shows as a small label in its top-left corner on the canvas. Locked items cannot be renamed here (but can still be reordered and jumped to).

Hiding the frames

Once a map has a lot of slide frames, the dashed boxes can get in the way of editing. The eye button at the top of the Slides panel hides every slide frame on the canvas, and shows them again. This is a setting of this browser, like the grid or snapping - not part of the map. So it does not travel with a shared map, and turning it on here does not hide the frames on your other laptop.

Presenting

Click Present in the Slides panel (disabled until at least one item is numbered). This hides all editing chrome and jumps straight to the first slide. Each slide fits the camera to that item's own bounds, recomputed live - so moving or resizing a frame or card after building the deck stays correct.

A small navigation bar sits at the bottom of the screen and fades out after a few seconds of no input - move the mouse or tap to bring it back. On a touch screen that first tap only brings the bar back; it never advances the slide, so you can reach Exit without losing your place. Exiting returns you to whichever mode (Edit or View) you were in before you started presenting.

Presentation settings

Open the hamburger menu for a Presentation section with two preferences, remembered on this device:

• Slide transition speed - Instant, Fast, Normal, or Slow.
• Loop back to the first slide at the end - off by default.

Tapping or clicking anywhere to advance is always on.

Editing text with Markdown

Card text is written in Markdown. Each example below shows what to type, then what you get.

Bold, italic, strikethrough

Type this:

**bold text**, *italic text*, ~~crossed text~~

Result: bold text, italic text, crossed text

Line breaks

A normal Return isn't always enough - use <br> to force a new line.

Type this:

Line one<br>Line two

Result:
Line one
Line two

Superscript / subscript

Type this:

H<sub>2</sub>O and X<sup>2</sup>

Result: H₂O and X²

Inline code

Type this:

Use `<br>` for a line break.

Result: Use <br> for a line break.

Code block

Type this:

```
{
  "firstName": "John",
  "lastName": "Smith"
}
```

Result:

{
  "firstName": "John",
  "lastName": "Smith"
}

Headers

Type this:

# H1
## H2
### H3

Result:

H1

H2

H3

Lists

Type this:

1. One
1. Two
1. Three

- Hello
- World
  - Sub item

Result:

1. One
2. Two
3. Three

• Hello
• World
  • Sub item

Links (including spatial navigation)

A regular http(s):// link opens in a new tab, like on any web page.

Linking to #ID_of_a_card instead jumps and zooms the view to that card - handy for quick navigation between related cards on the same map. Append :top or :center to control how the destination lands in view, e.g. #ID_1:top. You can also target a card by a short snippet of its text instead of its ID, if that's easier to remember or write.

A new item's ID is a random string by default, but every edit modal shows its type and ID (e.g. "Card · #ID_1") next to the save shortcut hint - click the ID to rename it to something you'll actually remember, like WM_BOARD. Renaming it there updates every connection, Button target, and #id link elsewhere in the map to match, as one undo step. If the new ID is already used by another item, it's automatically made unique (e.g. WM_BOARD-2) rather than rejected.

Type this:

[Visit Namapu Website](https://namapu.com)
[Zoom to a card](#ID_1)
[Zoom and land at the top](#ID_1:top)
[Jump to a card by its text](#some words from that card)

Result:

• Visit Namapu Website
• Zoom to a card (example only - ID_1 isn't a real card here)
• Zoom and land at the top (example only)
• [Jump to a card by its text](#some words from that card) (example only)

A Button item can jump the same way: select it, unlocked, and use its toolbar's "Set Target" action to point it at a card - no typed link needed. The button shows the target card's own title under its caption, so you can see where it leads without opening it - unless the caption already says the same thing, in which case the line is left off rather than printed twice.

Card-jump links only activate in view mode (not while editing), so editing text doesn't accidentally trigger navigation. This is an experimental feature - toggle it from the hamburger menu's Experimental section, "Jump links (Button "Set Target" + click-to-jump)".

Tables

Type this:

| Syntax    | Description |
| --------- | ----------- |
| Header    | Title       |
| Paragraph | Text        |

Result:

Task lists

Type this:

- [x] Write the press release
- [ ] Update the website
- [ ] Contact the media

Result:

• Write the press release
• Update the website
• Contact the media

Horizontal rule

Type this:

<hr>

Result: