canvas available in ms word 2016 (mac version)?

On Windows Word 2016, the option is called New Canvas Drawing and is at the bottom of Insert tab->Illustrations group->Shapes dropdown.

There is no such option on Mac Word 2016 (or 2011 for that matter). Word VBA on Mac does not currently have the AddCanvas command that the Windows version has, either, so it does not look as if you can create a macro to add one. (If you try to use the command to insert a shape of type msoCanvas, you get something that looks like a No Entry road sign, and it does not work like a canvas).

Because the canvas feature is not provided on Mac, it is difficult to recommend using them, as they may not actually be supported.

However, if you create a document on Windows Word and insert a canvas, then open that in Mac Word 2016 (or 2011), you get a Canvas that appears to work in a similar way on Mac. So if you have such a document, you could

• make a copy
• open it in Mac Word
• remove everything from the canvas and size/format it the way you want
• select the canvas and save it as an autotext

Then use the autotext feature to insert the canvas.

If you do not have such a document, you can use the XML I have provided below. To do that,

• Select all the XML and copy it to the clipboard (e.g. cmd-C on Mac)
• Open TextEdit and use File->New to create a blank document
• Paste the XML into that
• Use File->Save to save the document. I suggest that you select "Unicode UTF-8" in the "Plain text encoding" dropdown, uncheck "Hide Extension", and call the document canvas.xml. Make sure that TextEdit does not change the name (e.g. to canvas.txt or canvas.xml.txt)
• Use File->Close to close the document

You should then be able to open canvas.xml in Word. The canvas probably won't be visible until you click on it (it's at the top left of the document in the main text area).

Then save the canvas as an autotext, as suggested earlier.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<pkg:package xmlns:pkg="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/xmlPackage">
  <pkg:part 
    pkg:name="/_rels/.rels" 
    pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml" 
    pkg:padding="512">
    <pkg:xmlData>
      <Relationships xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/relationships">
        <Relationship 
          Id="rId1" 
          Type="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/officeDocument" 
          Target="word/document.xml" />
      </Relationships>
    </pkg:xmlData>
  </pkg:part>
  <pkg:part 
    pkg:name="/word/_rels/document.xml.rels" 
    pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml" 
    pkg:padding="256">
    <pkg:xmlData>
      <Relationships xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/relationships">
        <Relationship 
          Id="rId1" 
          Type="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships/settings" 
          Target="settings.xml" />
      </Relationships>
    </pkg:xmlData>
  </pkg:part>
  <pkg:part 
    pkg:name="/word/document.xml" 
    pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document.main+xml">
    <pkg:xmlData>
      <w:document 
        xmlns:a="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/main" 
        xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main"
        xmlns:wp="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing"
        xmlns:wpc="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingCanvas">
        <w:body>
          <w:p>
            <w:r>
              <w:drawing>
                <wp:anchor distT="0" distB="0" distL="0" distR="0" simplePos="0" relativeHeight="0" behindDoc="0" locked="0" layoutInCell="1" 
allowOverlap="1">
                  <wp:simplePos x="0" y="0" />
                  <wp:positionH relativeFrom="column">
                    <wp:posOffset>0</wp:posOffset>
                  </wp:positionH>
                  <wp:positionV relativeFrom="paragraph">
                    <wp:posOffset>0</wp:posOffset>
                  </wp:positionV>
                  <wp:extent cx="4000000" cy="3000000" />
                  <wp:wrapNone />
                  <wp:docPr id="1" name="Canvas 1" />
                  <a:graphic>
                    <a:graphicData uri="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingCanvas">
                      <wpc:wpc>
                        <wpc:bg />
                        <wpc:whole />
                      </wpc:wpc>
                    </a:graphicData>
                  </a:graphic>
                </wp:anchor>
              </w:drawing>
            </w:r>
          </w:p>
        </w:body>
      </w:document>
    </pkg:xmlData>
  </pkg:part>
  <pkg:part 
    pkg:name="/word/settings.xml" 
    pkg:contentType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.settings+xml">
    <pkg:xmlData>
      <w:settings xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main">
        <w:compat>
          <w:compatSetting w:name="compatibilityMode" w:uri="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word" w:val="15" />
        </w:compat>
      </w:settings>
    </pkg:xmlData>
  </pkg:part>
</pkg:package>

I found a way to insert canvas like Microsoft Word (Windows version) using MAC by going to:

1. Open PREFERENCES
2. Open RIBBON & TOOLBAR
3. Dropdown menu for Command to ALL
4. Click ADD (+) in Customise ribbon (create new tab)
5. Select INSERT DRAWING from command ALL to the new tab

On Mac You can insert a shape staright in word and then use tab "Shape Format" --> Arrange --> position --> "in line with text"

will give you the same effect as the canvas.