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Canvas Reader with HTML and PDF v1.2.0

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@nkyang10 nkyang10 released this 29 Sep 06:56
v1.2.0
c410f1a

Canvas Reader with HTML and PDF v1.2.0 — Windows release

Converts Cursor canvas .tsx files into standalone static HTML, and
previews them in a desktop viewer. No install, no Node.js required.

The exported page is no longer black if your Windows is in dark mode. Same
zip layout as v1.1.0, same flags, same CLI path.

Download

tsx-reader-export-1.2.0-windows-x64.zip

  1. Extract the zip anywhere (e.g. C:\tools\tsx-reader-export).
  2. Double-click tsx-reader-export-viewer.exe — it is at the top level.
  3. That is it — nothing to install.

What's in the zip

tsx-reader-export-1.2.0-windows-x64\
  tsx-reader-export-viewer.exe     <- the reader: double-click this
  locales\  resources\
  *.pak  *.dll                     <- its runtime, keep them beside the exe
  cli\
    tsx-reader-export.exe          <- the command line converter
    node_modules\                  <- required by the CLI (keep together)
    cursor-canvas.compat.mjs
    run-cli.bat
  LICENSE
  README.txt

The loose .pak and .dll files at the top level are Electron's runtime, not
clutter. The app resolves them relative to its own exe, so they have to sit in
the same folder. Deleting them breaks the reader.

Light or dark: pick the theme the canvas had in Cursor

A canvas .tsx does not record whether it was drawn in Cursor's light or
dark theme. It reads its colours from the Cursor host theme while it renders, so
the file on disk is theme-agnostic and the look depends entirely on the host.

Until v1.2.0 the export only half-supplied that, which produced the bug below.

In the reader — the Theme dropdown in the toolbar:

Choice What you get
Light the light Cursor theme, always
Dark the dark Cursor theme, always
Match system follows the reader's Windows light/dark setting

Your choice is remembered between sessions. Changing it re-renders (a moment's
wait) rather than restyling, because the colours are baked into the HTML at
render time.

From the CLI — the same choice as a flag:

cli\tsx-reader-export.exe my.canvas.tsx out.html
cli\tsx-reader-export.exe my.canvas.tsx out.html --color-scheme dark
cli\tsx-reader-export.exe my.canvas.tsx out.html --color-scheme auto

light (default) and dark are pinned: the file looks the same on every
machine. auto follows whoever opens it, which is what you want for a link you
are sharing, and what you do not want for a PDF.

The fix: the background was following your OS

The exported HTML is a Mantine page, and Mantine does not publish literal
colours — every one of them is a var(--mantine-color-*) defined by a block
scoped to an attribute on the root element:

:root[data-mantine-color-scheme='light'] { --mantine-color-body: var(--mantine-color-white); }
:root[data-mantine-color-scheme='dark']  { --mantine-color-body: var(--mantine-color-dark-7); }

The export never wrote that attribute, because a server render has no browser to
set it. So --mantine-color-body was undefined, the page background fell back
to transparent, and the browser painted the canvas from color-scheme: light dark — which is to say, from your Windows setting. Hence light content on a
black page for anyone using dark mode.

The export now writes the attribute and a matching <meta name="color-scheme">,
so the page is white on a light machine and on a dark one. Verified by reading
computed styles out of the rendered file with the OS theme forced both ways:

Export reader in dark mode reader in light mode
v1.1.0 transparent → black transparent → white
v1.2.0, default rgb(255, 255, 255) rgb(255, 255, 255)
v1.2.0, --color-scheme dark rgb(36, 36, 36) rgb(36, 36, 36)
v1.2.0, --color-scheme auto rgb(36, 36, 36) rgb(255, 255, 255)

This also means --color-scheme does something for the first time. In v1.0.0 and
v1.1.0 it was accepted, passed to the renderer, and then ignored.

Upgrading from v1.1.0

Extract the new zip into a new folder (or over the old one — nothing moved
this time; the reader is still at the top level and the CLI is still in cli\).

Nothing about the CLI changed: same executable, same flags, same paths. The only
difference is that --color-scheme now reaches the output.

Verify the download works

Both programs write a detailed log if anything goes wrong:

Program Log location
reader %APPDATA%\tsx-reader-export-viewer\viewer.log
cli\tsx-reader-export.exe cli\logs\tsx-reader-export.log (or %TEMP%)

Headless self-check of the packaged reader:

tsx-reader-export-viewer.exe --smoke path\to\canvas.tsx

Known issues

  • SmartScreen warning. The binaries are unsigned. Choose
    More info → Run anyway. To avoid it entirely, right-click the .exe →
    Properties → tick Unblock.
  • Antivirus false positives. Unsigned self-contained executables are
    sometimes flagged.
  • macOS and Linux builds are not included in this release. A macOS tester build
    is produced in CI on a v* tag — see the repository README.
  • The reproduced themes are the standard Cursor light and dark themes. A
    custom Cursor theme is not carried in the .tsx, so it cannot be reproduced
    — pick the closest built-in scheme.

Requirements

  • Windows 10 or later, 64-bit.
  • No Node.js, no Python, no build tools.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Built on the public shim
@thisismydesign/cursor-canvas-web
(MIT, © 2026 thisismydesign), which reimplements Cursor's virtual
cursor/canvas module so canvases can render outside the IDE.

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