Avatar mode drops a small pixel character onto the canvas and lets you walk it around. Instead of waving a cursor at the part of the canvas you are describing, you walk over to it, so the room follows a character moving between places. In Facilitate mode, choose Avatar from the tool picker at the start of the palette strip, or press W. In the other modes Avatar is not in the picker; a Mode Button set to Avatar still starts the walk in any mode.
Walking
Click anywhere on the canvas and the character walks there, in a straight line, facing the way it is going. Click somewhere else while it is still walking and it turns and heads for the new spot instead. Walk onto a Chair, Desk or Sofa and the character sits; press an arrow key or double-click to stand. A Fence stops it: characters cannot walk through one, nor through a room's walls (only its doorway). Walk up to a water cooler or a coffee machine and your character gets a drink; see Virtual Office. Walk onto a Reaction Pad and it throws its burst.
The arrow keys steer it directly: hold one and the character walks that way for as long as you hold it, and holding two walks a diagonal. Release and it stops where it stands. On a touchscreen, tapping is the way to move it.
When the character ends up standing on an element, that element gets a soft ring around it, so your audience can see exactly which box you have arrived at. The canvas scrolls to follow the character when it gets close to the edge of the view, and the zoom is left alone.
Jump and wave a flag
Press Space and the character hops, waving a small flag on the way up and for a beat after it lands. It is there for the moment in a walkthrough when you want to say "this bit here" with a little more emphasis than a ring around a box, and it works well for a round of applause at the end of a review.
One press is one hop: holding the key down will not pogo, and pressing again mid-air does nothing until the character is back on the ground.
Make the character yours
Whenever Avatar mode is on, an Avatar button sits next to Undo and Redo at the bottom right. Press it to open the Avatar panel: a character sheet with a portrait of your character and four choices, each one a row you expand:
- Gender: male or female.
- Clothing: sixteen outfits: T-shirt, stripes, jumper, hoodie, vest, suit, dress, skirt, polo, flannel, overalls, lab coat, Hawaiian, varsity, turtleneck, or apron.
- Hair: fourteen styles: short, buzz, curly, long, ponytail, bun, mohawk, bald, pigtails, afro, spiky, bob, braid, or top knot.
- Size: small, regular, or tall.
Each row shows what it is currently set to, so a collapsed panel still reads as a summary of your character; open one and the options appear. Pick anything and the character on the canvas changes as you go. In the corner of the portrait is a Randomise button: one click for a whole new character, keeping the size you chose.
The first time you use the mode you get a random character (a random gender, outfit and hairstyle, at the regular size), so you are not the same figure as everyone else by default. From then on it is yours: your choices are remembered in this browser, so the character you build is the one waiting the next time you enter the mode, in this document or any other.
Press the button again, press anywhere outside the panel, or press Esc to close it. The button is there on a phone too, and for view-only visitors.
Right-clicking the character on the canvas is a shortcut for switching gender without opening the panel. Right-clicking anywhere else does nothing while you are in this mode (the usual context menus stay shut so a menu cannot interrupt a walkthrough).
There is no colour choice, on purpose: the character's shirt takes your participant colour (the same colour as your cursor and your name in the tab bar), so on a shared document it is always obvious which character is yours.
Behaviour and Reactions
Under the customisation rows are two more rows you expand, each a list of one-click actions.
Behaviour makes the character perform on the spot:
- Jumping jacks: five of them.
- Wave: a raised hand, waving.
- Spin: two turns on the spot.
- Cheer: arms up, bouncing.
- Dance: a side-to-side sway.
They are quick on purpose (a gesture, not a cutscene), and everyone else on a shared document sees the performance too. Starting one stops whatever walk was in progress, so the character performs where it stands.
Reactions throws a burst around your character: Confetti, Sparkles, Hearts, Applause or Fireworks, the same five a Reaction Pad throws. The burst plays on your own screen.
On a keyboard, each action is a single key, so you can perform without opening the panel. Each button shows its key:
- Behaviour:
Jfor jumping jacks,Wto wave,Sto spin,Cto cheer andDto dance. - Reactions:
1to5throw Confetti, Sparkles, Hearts, Applause and Fireworks, in the panel's order.
The keys do nothing while you are typing a message or anything else, and V, H, K, I, Z and Escape still take you out of Avatar mode.
Show your status
Open the Avatar panel and pick a Status to let people know how you are, without a word:
- Available: a green dot over your head.
- Focusing: your character puts on headphones.
- In a Meeting: a red dot over your head.
- Away: your character fades and a little "Zz" floats up.
Everyone on the tab sees it, next to your name. It lasts until you change it or leave Avatar mode, and it is never saved.
Say something
Press Enter and a speech bubble opens above your character's head with a text box in it. Type up to 50 words and press Enter again (or the send button) and the bubble lets go of your head and floats slowly upward, swaying a little, until it fades away. Press Esc to cancel instead.
Everyone on the tab sees your bubble float up from where you were standing. Each bubble has a border in the speaker's colour and their name in small type under the message, so you can tell who said what even after they've walked off. Longer messages stay up longer, up to about ten seconds.
You can keep walking while you type: the bubble follows your character until you send it. There's a short pause of a second and a half between one message and the next.
On a phone, or if you'd rather not use the keyboard, open the Avatar panel and press Send a Message at the bottom: type in the box and press Send.
Messages aren't saved anywhere. Once a bubble has floated away it's gone, for everyone.
Speaking is for people who can edit or take part in the document. Someone with a view-only link sees everyone's bubbles but can't send one.
The canvas is read-only while you walk
Every click means "walk over there", so nothing on the canvas can be selected, moved, resized, or edited while Avatar mode is on, and the element shortcuts stay dormant. That is deliberate: you can click around the canvas freely mid-presentation without any chance of nudging a shape out of place.
Reaching for the palette lets you edit again. Pick any palette tile, or drag one onto the canvas, and Avatar mode steps aside, back to whichever tool you were using before, and the element drops as normal. You do not have to leave the mode by hand first.
Press Esc (or pick another mode) to put the character away. Panning still works the usual ways while walking: middle-mouse drag, a two-finger trackpad scroll, or the zoom controls.
Availability
Avatar mode is disabled on an empty canvas: add something to walk to first. It is available on desktop and touch, and to view-only visitors (press W), since it changes nothing. In Draw mode the palette shows Draw's own tools and W is not a shortcut there.
The first time you walk as an avatar, you're offered a short Avatar Tour of all this.
Everyone on a shared document can walk around at the same time, and you can see each other's characters. See Walking Together.
To invite people in without explaining where the tool picker is, drop an Avatar mode button on the canvas (the palette's Selection Mode category, in Facilitate mode). It reads "Switch to Avatar", so one click puts a visitor in the mode, and the character appears right at the button they pressed. Pressing it again while in the mode hands them back the tool they were using. See Selection Mode Buttons.
Portals work here too: walk your character into a Portal and you come out of the one it is linked to, even on another tab.
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