The menu on the left has four main parts:

• Appearance – the layout, the slideshow, colours, fonts and saved layouts.
• Media – where your photos and videos come from.
• Widgets – the clock, weather, calendar, lists, news and the rest.
• Account – signing in and the licence.

Below them are Screens and Sharing (once you’re signed in), Install app and About & help. Changes show on the screen behind as you make them. Press Back, Esc or the × to close.

Tip: You can use KCL Canvas without an account. Sign in when you want your settings on more than one screen, or to use OneDrive, Outlook and Microsoft 365.

KCL Canvas can sit on your computer or phone like any other app, in its own window without the browser’s address bar. Open Settings → Install app: it recognises your device and shows the steps, for example:

• Windows (Edge or Chrome): choose Install KCL Canvas, then pin it to the taskbar or Start.
• Mac: in Safari choose File → Add to Dock.
• iPhone and iPad: in Safari choose Share → Add to Home Screen.
• Android: choose Install KCL Canvas, or Add to Home screen in the browser’s menu.
• TVs: open it in the TV’s browser and bookmark it, or use a signage app such as AbleSign.

A QR code on the same page opens KCL Canvas on another device. The page also explains what’s possible with screensavers today.

Settings → Appearance → Slideshow controls how the photos are shown:

• Time per slide – from 5 seconds to 60 minutes.
• Transition – fade, cross-dissolve, slide or a slow zoom (Ken Burns).
• Shuffle – a random order.
• Fill the screen – crop photos to fill the screen instead of showing them whole.
• Only photos that match the screen’s shape – landscape photos on a landscape screen, portrait on portrait.
• Photo quality – Original for the sharpest picture on big TVs, or 4K / Full HD if photos load slowly.
• Shading overlay – darkens bright photos so the widgets stay easy to read.

The next photo is downloaded while the current one is on screen, so a slow connection doesn’t leave the screen blank.

Settings → Widgets lists every widget with an on/off switch; open one for its options. Photos only hides them all at once and keeps their settings for when you switch back.

Tap or select a widget on the screen to interact with it – tick off a task, open a news story or a Planner task.

• Digital, or analogue with or without numbers; 12- or 24-hour; seconds; the date.
• Where it sits on screen, and how its lines line up.
• Its time zone and place name – and up to six more clocks for other places, each showing its time difference.
• Show in a box puts it in a panel like the other widgets.

For photos that carry it (most phone photos in OneDrive, and photos added from the device), the Location widget shows the town, area and country, when it was taken, and a map with a pin.

Choose what to show, the map style (Standard, Topographic or Humanitarian), and a fixed zoom or Zoom in slowly while the photo is on screen.

Search for a town or city, or use the target button to use where the screen is. Choose the hourly and 7-day forecasts, feels-like temperature, chance of rain, wind, humidity, UV and sunrise and sunset.

Weather warnings shows official warnings for your area anywhere in Europe (from the national weather services, through MeteoAlarm), with a count of warnings elsewhere in the country.

Your Outlook calendars appear by themselves once you’ve signed in with Microsoft – switch off any you don’t want. Add iCloud, Google or any other calendar by its iCal link (it starts with https:// or webcal://), with a name and colour; the pencil edits one later.

• View – a list, a day, a week or the month.
• Calendars – all together, or one at a time with tabs, moving on every 30 seconds to 5 minutes.
• Style – text size, how events look, locations and end times.

Tip: In Google Calendar the link is in the calendar’s Settings → Secret address in iCal format. In iCloud, share the calendar as a Public Calendar and copy the link. In Outlook on the web: Settings → Shared calendars → Publish a calendar.

Choose KCL Canvas lists (a to-do list and a shopping list, synced between your screens) or Microsoft To Do, so ticking something off on the TV ticks it off on your phone too. Add items with the box at the bottom of the widget.

Show your team’s Planner plans as a Board, a List, a Gantt chart or a Calendar. Tick the plans you want; several plans take turns, with tabs.

Cards show labels, priority, dates (late ones in red), checklists and who’s doing them. Select a task to see its notes, checklist and links.

Planner is read-only on the screen: make changes in Planner and the screen catches up within a couple of minutes.

A scrolling ticker of headlines, a story card with a picture, or both. The default feeds are positive-news sites; switch them on or off, edit them, or add any RSS or Atom feed address.

Select a headline to read the summary, with a QR code to open the full story on your phone.

Your own heading and message – a welcome for visitors, the Wi-Fi name, or a reminder – with its alignment and size.

A group is your family, your office or anyone you want to share with. In Settings → Sharing, type a name and choose Create, then New invite link. People scan the QR code or open the link (it works for 7 days) and join with their own account.

To share a canvas, save it in Appearance → Saved layouts and choose Share. You decide:

• which groups can use it, and whether they can edit it or share it on;
• what it includes – the look always; news, weather place, text and web photos if you like; and, if you choose, your calendar links, OneDrive folders, Outlook calendars, To Do lists, Planner boards and Power BI reports.

A shared canvas is live: when you change it, everyone’s screens change too. They can show it on any of their screens or make their own copy. You can change or stop sharing at any time.

Tip: People you share OneDrive, Outlook, To Do or Planner content with don’t need a Microsoft account – but only share what you’re happy for the whole group to see.

On the main screen

• OK, S or Menu – open Settings
• ← / → – previous / next photo
• Space – pause or play the slideshow
• F – full screen

In Settings and pop-ups

• Arrows – move to the next control in that direction
• OK – select; on a slider, OK then ← / → to adjust
• Back or Esc – close

Settings → About & help has a link and QR code for this guide, the version you’re running and what’s new in each release. On any screen you can also go to canvas.kcl.cloud/help.

Still stuck? Email support@kcl.cloud – we usually reply within one working day.