How to Use Claude Artifacts: Turning Chats into Documents, Tables, and Mini Apps

"Where did that report draft Claude gave me yesterday go?"

You've probably scrolled back through a long conversation hunting for a result you know Claude gave you. Here's the fix: stop letting results get mixed into the conversation, and receive them separately instead. That's what Claude's Artifacts feature does. Documents, tables, diagrams, even mini apps with buttons you can actually click, all land in a dedicated window that opens to the right of your chat. The conversation keeps flowing on its own, and all you touch is the result sitting in that window. Once it's polished, a single link is enough to hand it to someone else.

The last lesson mapped out the names of sidebar features and the order to learn them in. Today it's time to actually open Artifacts, the easiest of those steps. If you're here just to find out what Artifacts is, or why ChatGPT's Canvas seems to have vanished, this lesson alone will answer that. All three services are actively reworking this space, so wherever something is likely to change, I'll note the date alongside it.

Artifacts

Artifacts pulls whatever Claude makes for you out of the conversation and into its own window. Once content runs past about 15 lines and is worth reopening and editing later, Claude puts it in the window on the right instead of leaving it in the chat. It works on the Free plan at claude.ai, too.

What Exactly Is an Artifact?

If a conversation is like placing an order at a restaurant, an artifact is the plate that actually arrives. The talking passes by, but the plate stays on the table. That's exactly what made plain chat frustrating: when even the food showed up as words, the next order buried the last one, and you lost track of where anything went.

So what decides whether something lands on a plate or just gets talked through? Claude's official help center lists four criteria.

• Is it self-contained content that usually runs past 15 lines?
• Is it worth editing or rewriting outside the conversation?
• Does it stand on its own without surrounding explanation?
• Is it something you'd want to find again later?

Clear those bars, and an artifact opens. The official docs name six representative types: documents in Markdown or plain text, code snippets, single-page HTML websites, SVG images, diagrams and flowcharts, and interactive React components.

That last type is what people usually mean by a mini app: a small web program where buttons and input fields actually work. You don't need to know how to code to order one up. Just ask, and you can get something like a budget calculator that updates its output as you type in numbers.

One thing worth flagging: tables aren't on that list by themselves. So instead of just saying "put this in a table," ask for a document with a table inside it, something like "write this up as a report, with the performance numbers as a table." What you're really doing is requesting a Markdown document and asking it to include a table.

If Artifacts won't open, check settings first. Claude's official docs state plainly that artifacts stop working if Code execution and file creation is turned off. This is on by default on every plan including Free, so it's usually fine, but someone could have switched it off. Click your name in the bottom left, go to Settings > Capabilities, and check. On a work account, an org owner can toggle it from organization settings.

One more distinction, since both live in the sidebar: Artifacts is a window that holds a single result, while Projects is a room that holds the material and instructions you used to produce it. Projects gets its own full lesson next, so for now, just remember that one line.

[Hands-On] Grabbing a Monthly Client Report Skeleton as an Artifact

Time to open one for real. Over this track, you're building toward a monthly content report you send a consulting client. Today's job is to grab that report's skeleton as an artifact. Once the skeleton exists as an artifact, next month all you swap out are the numbers. The whole point of this exercise is that you never start from a blank screen again.

Open a new chat in Claude and give it the instruction below. Structuring it around background, request, and format is exactly the approach covered in how to hand AI a task.

I consult on content marketing for a small cosmetics brand. I need a monthly content report to send the client every month. (background)

Build the skeleton of that report as a document. (request)

Sections in this order: this month's summary, performance by channel, the three best-performing pieces of content with reasons why, and next month's recommendations. For performance by channel, use a table with columns for channel, number of posts, views, engagement rate, and change from last month. I'll fill in the numbers myself, so just leave the cells blank and hold the space. (format)

This is a self-contained document well past 15 lines, so it clears the bar. Instead of a long reply sprawling through the chat, a window opens on the right with the report skeleton inside it.

Once you've got it, try editing it right away. There are two ways to revise an artifact.

The first is telling Claude in chat. Just type something like this into the conversation.

Add a sessions column to the performance-by-channel table, and trim next month's recommendations down to three.

Instead of creating another document, Claude updates the open artifact in place. The version selector lets you jump between the old version and the new one, so if you don't like the change, just revert. Feel free to experiment without worrying about it.

The second way is pointing directly at the spot you want changed. On a Markdown document artifact, drag-select the sentence you want to fix, then click "Edit with Claude" and type your request. Claude edits only the highlighted spot. You don't have to spell out which paragraph you mean in a long chat message. This is especially handy on a multi-section document like a report.

You can also keep multiple artifacts open in one conversation, say, the full report and a separate one-page summary. Pick which one you mean from the chat controls in the top right so Claude knows which artifact to edit.

What Artifacts Can and Can't Do

Knowing the boundary saves you wasted effort. Here's what's possible, starting with the basics.

What doesn't work is just as clear-cut, and the expectation that trips people up most is slide decks.

Artifacts doesn't produce PowerPoint files. Slides aren't on the list above, in any form. That doesn't mean Claude can't build you a PPT, though, it just means a different feature does it. Sitting next to Artifacts is a file creation feature that generates real, downloadable Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx), Word (.docx), and PDF files. You can save straight to Google Drive, and it handles up to 30MB per file. Both features get switched on by the same settings item, Code execution and file creation, which is exactly why they get confused. The rule of thumb: things you'll keep refining alongside the conversation go through Artifacts. Files you're going to attach and send to a client come from file creation instead.

Mini apps that store data come with one more condition: saving only works on an artifact you've published. It's normal for saving to fail while you're still building it, so don't worry if that happens. And what it can store is text only, images or files won't go in.

If you're not sure whether something should be an artifact, one question settles it: will you keep editing this, or read it once and move on? Editing means artifact, one-time-read means chat. Ask for a one-line phrase as an artifact and all you get is a window opening and closing for no reason.

Publish and Share: Handing It Off With One Link

Once your report skeleton is polished, it's time to show the client. The terminology splits by plan here. Free, Pro, and Max call it Publish, and anyone with the link can open it. Team and Enterprise call it Share, and only people logged in within the same organization can view it. In other words, a work account can't be exposed to the outside world at all.

Publishing takes four steps.

1. Open the artifact you want to publish.
2. Confirm you're looking at the right version.
3. Click Publish.
4. Copy the link that appears and send it along.

Don't skip past step two. Publishing sends out exactly whatever version is open right now. If you happened to be looking at an older version through the version selector when you clicked Publish, that's the version that goes out.

Publishing does one more thing: it adds that artifact to the Artifacts list in the sidebar. Which means an artifact you only created in conversation doesn't show up there automatically. That's the explanation behind "I definitely made this, so why isn't it in the list." If it's something you'll want to find again later, publish it.

Whoever gets the link can open it and click around without a Claude account. The exception is a mini app with AI built in, using its actual functionality requires signing up. After publishing, you can also grab an embed code to drop into another website, in which case you have to list the allowed domains yourself.

Two things you should know going in.

Unpublish an artifact, and you can't republish that same one. This is a hard constraint stated in the official docs. Making it public again means creating a new artifact from scratch, and whatever data was stored in the old one gets permanently deleted along with it. This button isn't for taking something down temporarily and putting it back up later.

Share within an organization, and any files you attached to that conversation open up along with it. This matters most if you built the artifact from a client's raw data. Before sharing, take a moment to check exactly what you uploaded into that conversation.

If sharing a link isn't practical for your situation, you can also copy the content or download it as a file from the bottom right of the artifact window.

I mostly used Artifacts for documents and HTML. I'd ask for a change on the left, and the result on the right updated on the spot. Watching the change happen while I refined it felt intuitive, and at that stage nothing else came close.

What's funny is I rarely called up an Artifact on purpose. I wasn't trying to build HTML. I'd just be explaining something, and Claude would open a window and start drawing it out on its own. More than once I had to say, "no, not that, I'm not making a landing page." Claude decides on its own when to trigger one, using the judgment call covered above, so it doesn't always match what I actually wanted. When that happens, it's faster to just tell it in one line what I want than to close the window.

Did ChatGPT's Canvas Disappear?

Type "chatgpt canvas" into a search bar and autocomplete finishes it with "gone" almost immediately. Short answer: on the current models, it really is gone.

OpenAI announced that Canvas stopped working on GPT-5.5 Instant and GPT-5.5 Thinking as of May 28, 2026. Writing and coding support moved into writing blocks and code blocks inside the chat reply itself. Instead of opening a separate window, an editable block gets embedded directly in the answer.

That gap didn't stay empty for long. On June 8, 2026, writing blocks on the web were extended to handle long-form content. Essays, reports, blog posts, and memos can now be opened in a full-screen editor, saved to your library, and pulled back up later. Long documents also got a table of contents and a download option. Code blocks got their upgrades earlier, back in February 2026: inline editing, mini-app previews, and split-screen review, followed by the ability to export flowcharts and diagrams as images.

So is Canvas gone for good? OpenAI's announcement said paid users could keep using Canvas on legacy models for a limited time. The catch is that those legacy models are being retired one by one. The same announcement noted GPT-4.5 was retired on June 27, 2026, and OpenAI o3 is scheduled to retire on August 26, 2026, which puts an actual expiration date on that "limited time." For what it's worth, o3-pro never supported Canvas to begin with, according to the release notes, so it's not a fallback either. Even the URL that used to host a dedicated Canvas help article now redirects to the model release notes.

So here's where that leaves you. If you've been hunting for a Canvas button on chatgpt.com, stop looking. For long writing, expand the writing block inside a reply to full screen, edit it there, and save it to your library. For code and diagrams, work inside the code block instead. The name and the shape changed, but everything you used to do, you can still do.

Building Slides with Gemini's Canvas

Gemini tells a different story. Canvas is still around under that exact name, and every Gemini user can use it. Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers get it paired with Gemini 3, the top-tier model, and a million-token context window.

The reason Gemini's Canvas is worth a look is slide decks. Google's official help center lists four things you can build with Canvas: documents, apps, slides, and code. Slides, the one thing missing from Claude's Artifacts list, is right here.

Getting started takes two steps. First, at gemini.google.com, click "add files" below the input box and turn on Canvas. Second, spell out the format you want directly in your prompt. Google's own example is "create a slide presentation about [topic]." Turning on the Canvas button alone won't get you slides, so don't skip that line. Once it's built, open Share & export in the top right of the Canvas panel on desktop. Click Export to Slides there to send it to Google Slides. Exporting as a PDF works too.

To directly answer a common search, "save gemini canvas as ppt": there's no path to a direct .pptx download in Gemini's Canvas help documentation. The official docs stop at exporting to Google Slides. If you actually need a PowerPoint file, the path is exporting to Google Slides first, then downloading it in a different format from there.

Three catches worth knowing ahead of time.

• Some localized help pages lag behind the English version. The Korean-language help page's export menu, for instance, only lists Export to Docs, Copy content, and Export to Colab, missing Export to Slides entirely. If you want to confirm the Slides functionality, check the English-language help page.
• Mobile has a narrower feature set. The Android help page's export menu doesn't include Slides at all, and text styling and formatting edits are desktop-web only.
• Under-18 accounts can't use the conversion tools. The Create menu that turns a Canvas document into a slideshow, quiz, infographic, webpage, or audio overview is restricted to accounts 18 and older. Making a copy of someone else's shared Canvas to keep editing it falls under the same age restriction.

Sharing works similarly to Claude. Generate a link from Share & export, and whoever receives it can copy it and keep editing. One catch: a shared Canvas only opens in Gemini on the web. Send that link to someone on the mobile app, and it won't open.

Frequently asked questions

What is Claude Artifacts?▸

It's a feature that pulls whatever Claude makes for you out of the conversation and into a dedicated window to the right of the chat. It kicks in once content runs past about 15 lines and is self-contained enough to edit or reuse outside the conversation. The official docs list six representative types: documents, code, single-page websites, SVG images, diagrams, and clickable mini apps. It's available on the Free plan too.

Why won't the artifact window open?▸

Check settings first. Claude won't support artifacts if Code execution and file creation is turned off. That toggle is on by default on every plan including Free. Even so, click your name in the bottom left and check its status under Settings > Capabilities. On a work account, an org owner controls it from organization settings. If the setting is on and it's still not opening, your request was probably too short to clear the threshold. Try asking for it as a document instead.

Can Claude Artifacts make a PPT?▸

Not through Artifacts. Slides aren't among the types listed in the official docs. Instead, Claude's file creation feature generates real PowerPoint (.pptx), Excel (.xlsx), Word (.docx), and PDF files. It handles up to 30MB per file and can save straight to Google Drive. It's turned on by the same settings toggle as Artifacts.

What's the difference between Artifacts and Projects?▸

Artifacts is a window that holds a single result. Projects is a space that holds the material and instructions used to produce results. You upload documents and write instructions into a project, which makes it useful for repeating conversations in the same context. Projects gets covered in detail in this track's next lesson.

Where did ChatGPT's Canvas go?▸

As of May 28, 2026, Canvas was removed from GPT-5.5 Instant and GPT-5.5 Thinking. Writing and coding support moved into writing blocks and code blocks inside the chat reply. Paid users were told they could keep using it on legacy models for a limited time, but GPT-4.5 was already retired on June 27, 2026, and OpenAI o3 is set to retire on August 26, 2026. For long writing, use the full-screen editor inside a writing block instead.

Sources (11)Expand to see all sources▸

• Claude Help Center, "What are artifacts and how do I use them?": the four criteria for creating an artifact, the roughly-15-line threshold, the six content types, availability by plan, the Code execution and file creation requirement, partial edits via Edit with Claude, the version selector, switching between multiple artifacts, MCP connections, and 20MB persistent storage that only works once published (checked 2026-08-21)
• Claude Help Center, Korean edition, "What are artifacts and how do I use them?": the official Korean-language terminology and settings path (checked 2026-08-21)
• Claude Help Center, "Publish and share artifacts": the Publish/Share terminology split by plan, the four-step publishing process, adding to the sidebar list, viewing without an account, embed codes and allowed domains, the no-republishing-after-unpublish rule, and attachments becoming visible on org sharing (checked 2026-08-21)
• Claude Help Center, "Create and edit files with Claude": generating and downloading .xlsx, .pptx, .docx, and PDF files, saving to Google Drive, the 30MB-per-file limit, and default availability by plan (checked 2026-08-21)
• Claude Help Center, "What are projects?": defines projects as an independent workspace holding material (project knowledge) and instructions (checked 2026-08-21)
• OpenAI Help Center, "Model Release Notes" (the old Canvas help URL now redirects here): removal of Canvas from GPT-5.5 Instant and Thinking on May 28, 2026, replacement with writing blocks and code blocks, temporary continued access on legacy models, GPT-4.5's retirement on June 27, 2026, OpenAI o3's retirement on August 26, 2026, and o3-pro never supporting Canvas (checked 2026-08-21)
• OpenAI Help Center, "ChatGPT Release Notes": full-screen writing blocks and library saving on June 8, 2026, interactive code blocks on February 19, 2026, and image export for code-block visuals on February 27, 2026 (checked 2026-08-21)
• Google Gemini Help, "Create docs, apps & more with Canvas" (English, desktop): creating documents, apps, slides, and code, turning on Canvas from add files below the input box, specifying format in the prompt, Export to Slides and slide PDF export under Share & export, the 18-plus restriction on the Create menu and on copying shared Canvases, and shared links opening only at gemini.google.com (checked 2026-08-21)
• The same article's Korean-language edition: the export menu lists only Export to Docs, Copy content, and Export to Colab, with no Export to Slides option (checked 2026-08-21)
• The same article's Android edition: the export menu lists only Export to Docs, Copy content, and Export to Colab, with no Export to Slides option (checked 2026-08-21)
• Google, "Gemini Canvas" product page FAQ: availability for every Gemini user, Gemini 3 and the million-token context window for Google AI Pro and Ultra, and text styling/formatting edits being desktop-web only (checked 2026-08-21)