What do I do in an empty room?

Start from an empty room

When a room has nothing on its canvas, a box titled How do you want to get started? appears in the middle, under the Pactto logo. Everyone in the room sees it, and the canvas, toolbar and header around it keep working. It has four parts.

Ask the AI Assistant

Type what you want in the field (Describe what you want to create or ask questions you have) and press Enter or click send. Shift+Enter adds a new line. The box closes, the Assistant panel opens on the right, and the Assistant starts working on your request. See Use the AI assistant in a room.

The field has the same controls as the Assistant panel, so you can also attach files, pick a skill or dictate your request.

Use a starter

Below the field are buttons for common first tasks:

• Generate a document, Generate an image and Create a moodboard open the Assistant and start that task. The Assistant first asks you a few questions (for example the goal, audience and tone of a document, or the theme, mood and colors of a moodboard), then creates it on the canvas. These three appear only for the room owner and people with Can edit.
• How to use Pactto? starts a short tour of the room. See below.

Start with files

At the bottom, Start with files takes your files without involving the Assistant. Drag files onto it, or click Browse files and pick them. The line under the title lists the accepted types (videos, images and PDFs, plus audio when your account can upload audio). The files upload right away and appear on the canvas. This part appears only for the room owner and people with Can edit.

Take the tour

Click How to use Pactto? for a seven-step tour. Each step darkens the room, rings one part of the screen in yellow and explains it:

1. Manage your room: the room name and its menu, top left.
2. Conversation mode: puts everyone's camera at the center and hides the canvas.
3. Create on your canvas: the toolbar.
4. Connect & collaborate: camera, microphone and Share.
5. Create with your AI Assistant: the Assistant button. You can also open the Assistant with ⌘ J on a Mac or Ctrl J elsewhere.
6. Navigate your canvas: the minimap, or the zoom controls when the minimap is hidden.
7. Keep your work organized: the button that opens the room's assets and comments.

Click Next and Back to move between steps, and Done on the last one. Click Skip tour or press Esc to stop at any point. When the tour ends, the start box comes back if the canvas is still empty. You can take the tour again whenever the box is showing.

Close the start box

• Press Esc while you are in the box to close it for the rest of your visit. It comes back the next time you enter the room, if the canvas is still empty.
• Opening the Assistant panel hides the box. It comes back when you close the panel, unless you already started a conversation.
• The box fades away as soon as anything lands on the canvas, and returns if the canvas becomes empty again.

If a file is not accepted

• "This file type isn't supported yet.": the file is not one of the accepted types.
• "File is too large. Maximum size is 5 GB.": each file can be up to 5 GB.
• When you drop several files and some are not supported, the others are still added and a message says how many could not be added.

Good to know

• The box is not shown on phones (screens under 640 pixels wide), while someone is sharing their screen, or in conversation mode.
• In a room you just created, the Get this room going checklist also appears at the bottom left. See Set up a new room with the Get this room going checklist.