Board Sections are a great way to organize your boards. You can use them to:
- create an overview of the board
- create presentations from board content
- change where the board opens when a user joins
- create custom exports (as image or pdf)
- navigate your layout during presentations
Adding Board Sections
Please note. Users on the board must be editors to be able to edit board sections. However, everyone on the board can use board sections for navigation. Learn more about Board Access Roles.
The following items can be added as a Board Section:
- Shapes
- Sticky notes
- Text fields
- Images, uploaded files (multi-page documents are automatically added as board sections for easier navigation)
You can create a shape section around Scribbles if you want to include them in the sidebar as a section.
Add an Item on the Board as a Section:
- Select the item
- Click the "Add to sections" icon in the floating toolbar or use the right click menu "Add to sections"
Tip: You can also use the "Make a Section" shortcut ALT + B after you have selected the item
How to Add Freeform Sections
- Zoom out to where you can see all content
- Open sections sidebar ("list" icon) and click on "+" to create a new section
- Alternatively, you can create a new section via the "Insert" menu -> "Insert section"
- Click on "Freeform"
- Click and drag to create a new section
- Make sure to add useful names!
You can also use Shapes to visually group other content on the board:
- Zoom out to where you can see your content
- Select the Shapes(S) tool from the board toolbar
- Choose a shape, and click and drag to create the size you need
- Click "Add to sections" in the floating toolbar or right-click menu. Or use the shortcut: ALT + B
How to Add Custom Section Sizes
- Zoom out to where you can see all content
- Open sections sidebar ("list" icon) and click on "+" to create a new section
- Alternatively, you can create a new section via the "Insert" menu -> "Insert section"
- Choose the section size you need (or choose your own size)
- Click and drag to create a new section
- You can resize while maintaining the right ratio by holding Shift when using the Select tool and dragging out the corners
What can you do with the custom section sizes? Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Create quick UI sketches for apps
- Export board sections to use in Powerpoint (use the 4:3 ratio)
- Setup Letter or A4 page sections so you can easily print out your custom board exports
- Setup 16:9 ratio sections in the board to make sure your interactive presentations look great on laptops
More Section Types
Besides Custom size and Freeform sections, Conceptboard offers a variety of other section sizes. You can choose between:
- Ratio: 16:9, 4:3, 1:1
- Page format: A4 Portrait, A4 landscape, Letter portrait, Letter landscape
- Devices: Mobile, Tablet portrait, Tablet landscape, Desktop, Desktop HD
Navigating Sections
Sidebar
Clicking on a section in the sidebar will take you to that section on the board.
- The active section is highlighted with a blue bar
- To navigate using the keyboard, use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list
- To view the selected section on the board, press "Enter"
Board
If no object is selected on the board, you can move between sections using the keyboard's left/right or up/down arrow keys.
ℹ️ Due to accessibility improvements in Conceptboard, sections are in the selected mode only when:
- Directly clicked on while the Select tool (V) is active
- If the selection is drawn around them while the Select tool (V) is active
- Tabbing through the board content when there is a selected object on it
Organising the Sections Sidebar
To move a section up/down the sidebar, click and drag it to a new position. You can also right click and choose "Move to top"/"Move to bottom" or "Move up"/"Move down".
To duplicate a section, select it and copy/paste it via the keyboard shortcuts, or the duplicate button in the toolbar/right click menu.
To select a section, double click it, or hold down command and click on a section/sections to select them. You can also use shift to select a range of sections.
To select all sections, click on the sections menu and choose "Select all".
To remove an item from the sections sidebar, right click on it and choose "Remove from sections". This does not remove the item from the board.
Tip: You can also toggle sections by hitting B on your keyboard.
Pinning Elements
All elements on the board are created unpinned, but can be pinned by selecting and clicking the pin item in the floating toolbar. Pinning items makes it easier to work on top of content, as it essentially locks the item preventing accidental movement, deletion, and certain types of modification thereof.
Actions that are permitted on pinned elements without unpinning:
- text editing
- updating text styles
- changing the colour of the element
- adding object links
- adding rows and columns in tables
Actions that are prohibited on pinned elements before unpinning:
- moving the element
- resizing
- rotation
- cropping
- object deletion
- object alignment
Note: More details can also be found in this section of Pinning Items to the Board
Sections as Containers
Board sections in Conceptboard behave as "context aware" or "smart". Any item that you add to a section will be attached to that section, or contained. This feature eliminates the need to manually group objects with their respective sections or to select multiple objects before moving them on the board.
How it works
- Contained by default: When you drag a section, it automatically detects everything inside its borders (containment) and moves all items together. You do not need any manual group selection
- Safe Transformations: This containment only applies to the action of moving the section on the board. Resizing a section works independently of its contents. The items inside do not scale or stretch when you resize the section itself
- Deletion: Deleting a section, will delete its content.
- Duplication: Duplicating a section, will duplicate its content.
Pinned Item inside sections
If you pin an object inside a section:
- It always stays in place inside the section where you pinned it
- It always retains its position relative to other objects inside the section and the section itself
- You cannot move the item separately until you unpin it
- When the section moves, the pinned item moves with it, maintaining its pinned position relative to the section and other objects inside it
Exporting Sections
Open the section menu and select the sections you wish to export. All selected sections will be highlighted on the board. Then click on the three-dot menu and choose ‘Export section(s) as PDF’, or use the right-click menu for the same action.
You can also export specific items in your board that you have selected as a PNG image.
- Using the select tool, select all the items that you wish to export.
- Right-click or click on the Edit menu in your top toolbar and choose Export -> Selection.
A new tab will automatically open with the selections that you have chosen to export.
Changing Board Start Position
When you open a board, you will be presented with a full-board view, which encompasses all board content. You can then choose to change the landing point to a specific area on the board. For example, if you could emphasise the latest iteration, or create a welcome banner for the board.
How to Change Landing Point
- Create a section, or add an item to the sections list
- Right click the item in the sidebar menu and choose "Set as initial start section". It will be marked with an icon to show it's the initial starting section for the board. Alternatively, you can use the three-dot menu for the same action
How to Reset the Start Position
- To reset the starting position to the full-content view again, click the three-dot menu and choose: "Reset initial start section"
Troubleshooting
If you share a board url with a section item number, this overrides the board start position.
It's a great way to direct someone to a particular board area, but make sure to share the board url without any item id if you want to take advantage of the board landing feature.