# Canvas Apps and Visualforce Pages

In addition to standard canvas apps, Canvas also lets you expose a canvas app on a Visualforce page. This means you can display a canvas app anywhere you can display a Visualforce page.

Developers can use Visualforce pages to:

- Override standard buttons, such as the New button for accounts, or the Save button for contacts
- Override tab overview pages, such as the Accounts tab home page
- Define custom tabs
- Embed components in detail page layouts
- Create dashboard components or custom help pages
- Customize, extend, or integrate the sidebars in the Salesforce Console (custom console components)

To host a canvas app on a Visualforce page, use the `<apex:canvasApp>` component.

:::note
The Canvas framework includes methods that you can use to circumvent the navigational limitations of the iframe that contains a canvas app, without using Visualforce pages. These methods offer a streamlined alternative for controlling navigation to or from canvas apps in the Salesforce app. For details, see [Salesforce Mobile App Navigation Methods for Use with Canvas Apps](/docs/platform/canvas-framework/guide/canvas-apps-salesforce1-navigation-methods.md).
:::

## Known Limitations

Canvas apps embedded in Visualforce using `<apex:canvasApp>` serialize parameters as part of a redirect URL during load. If the combined size of parameters exceeds 8KB, this may cause the redirect to fail with a 500 Internal Server Error. This is due to a header size limit.

To avoid the header size limit issue:

- Pass only small tokens or ID's via parameters.

- Let your Canvas app fetch large payloads server-side.

- Consider using signedRequest mode, which avoids redirects and uses POSTS.

- **[Visualforce Page Code Examples](/docs/platform/canvas-framework/guide/canvas-app-vf-code-example.md)**

  You can display a canvas app on a Visualforce page in a number of ways.

- **[Visualforce Considerations](/docs/platform/canvas-framework/guide/canvas-app-vf-considerations.md)**

- **[apex:canvasApp Component](/docs/platform/canvas-framework/guide/canvas-app-vf-component-ref.md)**

  Use this component to display a canvas app on a Visualforce page. The table below lists the component attributes.

- **[Using Events between a Visualforce Page and a Canvas App](/docs/platform/canvas-framework/guide/canvas-vf-app-resizing.md)**

**See Also**

- [Visualforce Page Code Examples](/docs/platform/canvas-framework/guide/canvas-app-vf-code-example.md)
- [Visualforce Considerations](/docs/platform/canvas-framework/guide/canvas-app-vf-considerations.md)
- [apex:canvasApp Component](/docs/platform/canvas-framework/guide/canvas-app-vf-component-ref.md)