The canvas is the interactive preview at the center of the builder. You use it to select content, move elements, and inspect your layout at different sizes. Good navigation habits save time, especially on complex pages.
Overview and canvas
Instant has two main views:
Overview — The wide left sidebar shows your project: overview, analytics, Studio, A/B tests, and plan. The canvas is hidden. Press
Alt+1, or choose Overview from the header menu, to return here.Canvas — The sidebar narrows to a panel and the canvas fills the center. Open any layout from Layouts & layers, press
Alt+2, or choose Canvas from the header menu.
Select elements
Click any element on the canvas to select it. The element gets an outline, and the design panel on the right shows its settings. Click empty space to deselect.
Deep selection — Some elements are nested inside containers. Hold
Ctrl(Cmdon Mac) and click to select a deeper layer instead of its parent.Multi-select — Hold
Shiftand click additional elements to add them to your selection. When multiple elements are selected, the design panel shows the properties you can edit together.
You can also select elements from the Layers tree in Layouts & layers — clicking a layer name selects that element on the canvas.
Pan the canvas
When your page is larger than the visible area, pan to see different regions:
Scroll wheel — Scroll vertically. On Windows and Linux, hold
Shiftwhile scrolling to pan horizontally (this matches Mac trackpad behavior).Spacebar + drag — Hold
Space, then click and drag to pan freely.Middle mouse button — Click and drag with the middle mouse button to pan.
Zoom the canvas
Zoom changes how large the canvas appears on screen. It does not change your page width or breakpoint — that's controlled separately in the header.
Zoom menu — In the header, next to the width input, open the zoom menu and pick a percentage from 50% to 200%.
Keyboard —
Ctrl+=/Cmd+=to zoom in,Ctrl+-/Cmd+-to zoom out,Ctrl+0/Cmd+0for 100%, andCtrl+Alt+0/Cmd+Alt+0to reset the view (recenter and fit).Trackpad pinch — Pinch to zoom on a trackpad.
Modifier + scroll — Hold
Ctrl(Cmdon Mac) and scroll to zoom in or out.
Use Reset view when you've panned or zoomed far away and want to recenter on your page quickly.
Preview mode
Toggle Preview (Ctrl+Shift+E / Cmd+Shift+E) to interact with the page as a shopper would — links, buttons, and overlays behave like the live storefront. Exit preview to resume editing. Team members with viewer access always see preview mode and can't switch to editing.
Command palette
Open the command palette with Ctrl+K / Cmd+K and search for canvas actions under the Canvas group: publish, toggle preview, undo, redo, next and previous viewport, zoom, and reset view.