Basics and Decorate — cards that hold numbers and formulas, and cards that label a board

"Trip costs" at the top left is a Heading card. Below it, Costs is a List card: it adds up four rows — Travel, Hotel, Food and Sightseeing — and shows 1,200. People at the top right is an Input card, and Per person below it is a Calc card with the formula Costs ÷ People: 1,200 ÷ 3 = $400.

Changing Sightseeing in the list from 120 to 180 makes the total 1,260 and the amount per person $420. Pressing + on People once then makes 4 people, and the amount per person becomes $315.

Calc

A Calc card holds a number or a formula and shows the result. A formula can use the value of another card by that card's name; this is called a reference. The result goes to every card that refers to this card or is connected to it by a line. The symbols and functions a formula can use, and what a card shows when it cannot calculate, are listed in Formulas and functions.

On Board 2, four cards refer to A (12) and B (4) to give the sum, the difference, the product and the quotient. Any number of cards can refer to the same card. Changing the formula in B to 3 changes the four results to 15, 9, 36 and 4. With B at 0, only A ÷ B shows "Cannot divide by 0"; the other three show 12, 12 and 0.

Results can also be passed along from card to card. On the next board, four cards in a row take A = 12, double it to 24, add 10 to get 34 and halve that to get 17. Each intermediate value stays on its own card, where an ordinary calculator would have replaced it.

Open the board with four steps in a row ↗

Input

An Input card holds a number you intend to change yourself. It can be changed with a number field, ± buttons or a slider, and its value goes to every card that refers to it. Switching between the three, range and step, units and recording values are covered in Input types.

On Board 3, x and y are Input cards shown as sliders. The three cards on the right give x + y, x × y and x ÷ y. With x at 6 and y at 3, they show 9, 18 and 2. With y at 1, x × y and x ÷ y are both 6, because multiplying or dividing by 1 leaves x unchanged. With both x and y at 4, x ÷ y is 1.

Another board moves three cards with a single slider. With x at 4, x × 2, x² and x ÷ 2 are 8, 16 and 2. At x = 10 they are 20, 100 and 5: x² grows much faster than the other two.

Open the single-slider board ↗

Memo

A Memo card holds text on the board, such as the assumptions behind a number or where it came from. It takes no part in calculations and passes no value to other cards.

• Clicking inside the card lets you type. Line breaks are allowed.
• "Source" at the bottom opens a box for a link. Only an http or https URL can be attached, and the card shows the link's domain name. A URL typed without the scheme, such as "example.com", gets https:// added.
• Dragging the bottom-right corner resizes the card.
• The three "A" buttons in the card menu (⋯) set the text size: "Small text", "Normal text" or "Large text".

List

A List card holds rows of a name and a number and totals them. The single total goes to every card that refers to the list. Costs on Board 1 is a List card.

• Rows — "＋ Add row" adds a row, and × at the end of a row removes it. Names and numbers can be edited in place.
• How to total — the menu at the top left offers SUM, AVG, MEDIAN, MODE, MAX, MIN and STDEV. STDEV divides by the number of values (the population standard deviation). MODE shows "—" when no value appears twice.
• Columns — "＋Col" adds a column of numbers, up to four. With two or more columns, a menu appears for the column to total. SUMPRODUCT multiplies two columns row by row and adds the products; W.AVG is the average weighted by the other column.
• Filter — "Non-zero" leaves out rows whose value is 0; "Top 3", "Top 5" and "Top 10" total only that many rows, largest first. "Merge same names" adds up rows with the same name and totals them as one row; the rows themselves stay as they are.
• The × field — a multiplier for the total. The numbers in the rows do not change, but the value passed to other cards is the multiplied one. Setting it to 0.001, for example, turns amounts in units into thousands.
• ↗ — makes a Calc card from that row's name and number. The new card holds only the number and is not linked to the list.
• "Sheet" and "CSV" — "Sheet" copies the table in a form a spreadsheet can paste; "CSV" saves it as a CSV file.

On Board 1 as loaded, switching the total to AVG gives 300, and MAX gives 480.

The next board is a shopping list with two columns, Price and Qty, totalled with SUMPRODUCT. Apples 2 × 4, Oranges 1 × 10 and Milk 3 × 2 come to 24. With W.AVG, it shows 1.5, the average price weighted by quantity.

Open the price-and-quantity list ↗

A table copied from a spreadsheet can be pasted straight onto the board (Ctrl+V, or ⌘+V on a Mac). A dialog then gives the size of the table and a button, "As one list card". When the first row holds headings, the dialog says so, and the headings become the column names. A two-column table of names and numbers can also become one named Calc card per row, with a button such as "As 3 separate cards".

Selecting a List card and pressing "Visualize" makes a chart of its rows (Visualize).

Current & goal

Current & goal takes a current value and a goal, and shows how much is left and what percentage has been reached.

To the goal, on the right of Board 4, is this card. With Current at 2,400 and Goal at 3,000, it shows "600 to go (80% reached)".

• Both values are typed into the card. Another card cannot be connected to supply them; trying shows "This card can't take a value".
• Once Current reaches Goal, the card shows "Goal reached" with 100% or more. With a goal of 0 it shows "The goal is 0".
• The card has no ○ for drawing a line from it, so its values cannot be used in other cards' calculations.
• Selecting the card and pressing "Visualize" offers "Progress" and "See the difference". "Progress" adds a gauge card whose needle shows the percentage reached; it follows changes to Current and Goal.

Simulation

A Simulation card repeats the same change a number of times, starting from a value, and shows where it ends up.

• The four fields, Start, ± each time, Rate % and Times, are typed into the card. It cannot take values from other cards.
• Each time, the current value is multiplied by (1 + rate ÷ 100), and then "± each time" is added. With a rate of 0, the card simply adds "± each time" as many times as Times says. A negative "± each time" takes the amount off each time.
• The large number at the bottom is the final value, and it goes to every card that refers to this one. The small line above it traces the values on the way.
• Times is a whole number from 1 to 120. A larger number is set to 120, and a message says so. The rate cannot go below −100.
• Selecting the card, pressing "Visualize" and choosing "See the trend" adds a line chart of every value from time 0 to the end.

The left card on Board 4 saves 200 a month: Start 0, ± each time 200, Rate % 0 and Times 12 give 2,400 after 12 months. With Times at 15, it shows 3,000. To the goal on the right is not connected to it, so it does not change. Typing 3,000 into its Current field makes it show "Goal reached (100%)".

Heading

The Decorate cards start here. None of the four takes part in calculations or passes a value to other cards.

A Heading card holds one line of large text, for the title of a board or the name of a group of cards. "Trip costs" on Board 1 is a heading. Pressing Enter after typing ends the edit. The "A" buttons in the card menu (⋯) choose one of three text sizes, and dragging the bottom-right corner changes the width. Like a memo, it can carry a link through "Source" below the text.

Open a board with a heading, a stamp, a memo and a divider ↗

Divider

A Divider card draws one horizontal line, with an optional short label under it. It separates parts of a board. Dragging the bottom-right corner changes the length of the line.

Stamp

A Stamp card places a single mark on the board, a check mark to begin with. When the card is selected, a ❖ button ("Change stamp") appears at the bottom right; it offers twelve marks, including Star, Heart, Flag and Warning. A stamp placed next to a card makes that card easy to find.

Image

An Image card places a photo or a picture on the board. Pressing "Image" under Decorate in "Add a card" opens a file picker, and the chosen image becomes a card. Pasting an image onto the board, or dropping an image file on it, also makes an Image card. Dragging the bottom-right corner resizes it.

Images are not included in share links. On a board opened from a link, the Image card shows "Images are not included in shares" (Save, share and embed).

Articles that use these cards

Calc and Input cards appear on nearly every board in the articles. The other cards are used here:

• Mean and median — eight scores in a List card, totalled as the median.
• Compound interest — a Simulation card that grows 100 by 5% ten times.
• Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) — two Simulation cards that compare five years of growth at two rates.

Read next — Totals & comparisons
Cards that combine several numbers or compare two, such as Result, Summary and Before & after.

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