Like Klondike solitaire, the goal of Canfield is to move all the cards in a deck to suit stacks of ascending rank, forming stacks of descending rank an alternate color as an intermediate stage. Cards are drawn from a deck three at a time. Unlike Klondike, the base card of the suit stacks is usually not an ace. In addition to the deck, 13 cards are placed in a reserve of which only the top is accessible.

There are four parts of the screen. The reserve consists of 13 cards on the left side of the top row. The top card of the reserve is turned face up and can be moved to the building stacks or the suit stacks. The suit stacks are located on the right side of the upper row. The starting rank of the suit stacks is determined by a randomly drawn card which is moved to the suit stacks. A "ghost" card indicates the base card of the other three stacks. The deck is located on the left side of the bottom row. Three cards from the deck are turned up from the deck and placed to the right of the deck. The topmost of these three can be moved to a suit or building stack. Clicking on the deck or right clicking anywhere on the screen will turn over an additional three cards. When there are no more cards in the deck, an outline will appear. Clicking inside the outline will begin another pass through the deck. An unlimited number of passes through the deck can be made. The building stacks are found in the right side of the bottom row. Each stack initially contains one randomly chosen card. A card can be placed on top of the stack if it has a different color and a rank one less than the card currently at the top. Stacks can be merged, leaving an empty space, but moving part of one stack to another is not allowed. Empty building stacks can only accept cards from the reserve (which will be moved automatically). Cards can be moved from the deck to an empty space if the reserve is exhausted.

To move a card, click on the card (which will highlight it) and then click on the destination. A card can be moved from the reserve, deck or top of the building stacks to the suit stacks if the card's suit is the same as the cards in the stack and the card's rank is the base rank of the building stack or one more than the card at the top of the stack. (Aces are placed on top of kings in the suit stacks.) A card from the reserve or deck can be moved to the top of a building stock if the card has a different color and a rank one less than the card at the top of the stack. (Kings can be placed on aces.) A card from the reserve can fill to an empty building stack. If the reserve is empty, a card from the deck can fill an empty building stack. An entire building stack can be moved to the top of another building stack. A card will be automatically moved to the suit stacks from the building stacks if the cards which might be placed on top of it are already in the suit stacks. Clicking undo will retract an automatic move.