Write Elements

The Write category (under Common in the palette's category picker) holds the elements whose content is words. Everywhere else in the palette you place something with a shape and then maybe label it; here the text is the point and the shape is just what carries it.

They differ mostly in how much you have to say. A Page holds paragraphs, a Sticky note holds a thought, a Text label holds a line, and an Annotation holds a remark you have to hover to read. The Page sits first because it is the largest writing surface on the canvas.

What the category contains

• A Page is a paper-shaped surface for prose, and the largest writing surface on the canvas. Double-click to write. Reach for it when the diagram needs a paragraph rather than a caption: a brief beside the boxes, a summary at the top of the board. See Pages.
• A Text element is a free-standing label with no box around it: just words on the canvas. T drops one. Use it for titles, column headings, and anything that labels a region rather than an element, since a shape's own label is the better way to name a shape. See Text and Fonts.
• A Sticky note is a coloured note card, the one that reads as somebody's contribution rather than the author's structure. N drops one. It is what retros, brainstorms and dot votes are made of, and it is what an idea box scatters into. See Sticky Notes.
• An Annotation is a small marker you drop on the diagram that holds a note. Hover it to read, click to edit. It is the one that keeps its text out of the way: the remark lives inside the marker instead of taking up canvas. See Annotations.

Picking between them

Three of the four are surfaces you compose on; the annotation is not. That is the line worth knowing.

A Page, a Text label and a Sticky note all put their words on the board, where everyone reads them without doing anything. An Annotation puts a marker on the board and hides its words until somebody hovers it. So the question is whether the text is part of what the diagram says, or a side remark about it.

If the diagram is incomplete without the words, use one of the three surfaces. If the words are commentary — a caveat, a reminder, a "we should revisit this" — an annotation says exactly that by being small.

Why they are rows, not tiles

Most catalogue categories show a grid of pictures, because the picture is the explanation. These four are all rectangles with text in them, so at tile size they look nearly alike. Write renders as rows with a one-line description each, because "a paper-shaped page for prose" against "a marker that holds a note" is what you are actually choosing between, and no icon says that.

Working with them

Each behaves like any other element once placed: select, restyle, group, lock and move it freely, and each can carry a link like anything else on the canvas. The one exception is rotation, which the three surfaces allow and the annotation marker deliberately does not — a tilted note marker reads as a mistake rather than a choice.

Text styling is shared with the rest of the canvas rather than special to this category: font, size, weight and alignment all come from the same controls that style a shape's label. See Text and Fonts.