Writing Tip: Claude Gets Canvas!

I was working on some text this afternoon and noticed that Claude can now rewrite inside an artifact… without regenerating the whole piece.

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Is this new? I’ve never seen it before. (Watch on YouTube if it’s blurry.)

Here’s how to do it: Get Claude to write something in an Artifact, then ask it to rewrite something without regenerating the whole article. You’ll see the existing section vanish and the new section appears in its place.

This is a HUGE improvement on the old method, which involved:

1. Rewriting the entire thing (argh, my usage limit!), or
2. Rewriting sections and then stitching together in a doc.

Have you seen this in action before today?

Claude didn’t know when this feature was added, but it did provide me with some helpful tips, which it says are part of its system prompt now:

The main ways to modify artifacts are:update command - For making targeted changes to specific parts of an artifact by specifying the exact old text and new text. This is best for small, precise edits.rewrite command - For making major changes that affect a large portion of the content. This replaces the entire artifact content.

Both use the same artifact ID to ensure we're modifying the same artifact. When making changes, it's important that:For update, the old_str must match exactly (including whitespace) and appear only once in the artifactFor both commands, we include the complete content rather than using shortcuts or placeholdersWe should use update for minor changes and rewrite for major overhauls.

Let me know if I’m just late to the party!