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Whiteboard

Sketch diagrams, flowcharts and notes in a hand-drawn style on an endless board, present them as slides, then save a PNG, an SVG, a PDF or the board to open again, on your device. Free, with no account or uploads.

Draw on a whiteboard

Sketch diagrams, flowcharts and notes in a hand-drawn style. Open a board file (.excalidraw), or a PNG or SVG saved with its board inside, by choosing it or dropping it here.

Drawn on this device. Nothing is uploaded, and the board is kept in this browser only if you turn that on.

How it works and help

A little help along the way

Follow these steps. Every option is explained underneath, and nothing you draw leaves your device.

  1. Open a boardPress New board, or open a board file (.excalidraw) or a PNG or SVG saved with the board inside. The board opens in its own window, as large as the screen.
  2. Pick a tool and drawChoose a rectangle, a diamond, an ellipse, an arrow, a line or the pen in the bar at the top, or press its key: R, D, O, A, L or P. Drag on the board to draw. Hold Shift for a square, a circle or a line at a steady angle, and Alt to draw from the middle.
  3. WritePress T and click where the words go, or double-click anywhere on the board. Double-click a shape to write in it: the words are wrapped to fit and stay in the middle when the shape moves or changes size. Press Escape or click away when you are done.
  4. Choose, move and changeWith the arrow pointer (V), click something to choose it, or drag a box around several things. Drag to move them, the square handles to resize, the round one to turn. Alt while dragging leaves the originals and moves copies.
  5. Join things with arrowsDraw an arrow from one shape to another: its ends hold the shapes, and when a shape moves the arrow goes with it. Choose Elbow under Through its points for an arrow that goes only across and down, round the shapes. Double-click an arrow to write on it, or a line to move, add or take out its points.
  6. Make a flowchart from the keyboardChoose a shape and press ⌘ or Ctrl and an arrow key: a shape like it appears that way, joined by an arrow. Press again for the next step, or the same way twice for a branch.
  7. ArrangeChoose several things to line them up or space them evenly, group them (⌘G), flip them or lock them. Draw a frame (F) round a part of the board to keep it together and name it; frames are your slides. Things snap to each other as they move; hold ⌘ or Ctrl to stop that for one drag.
  8. Give it a lookThe panel that opens on the left changes what is chosen, or what you draw next: the line's and the fill's colours, a hatched or solid fill, the width and style of the line, how rough it looks, corners, arrowheads, fonts and how see-through it is.
  9. Move aroundScroll to move the board, or hold Space and drag. Hold ⌘ or Ctrl and scroll, or pinch, to zoom. Shift and 1 shows everything on the board.
  10. Pictures and the penPress Picture (9), drop a picture on the board or paste one. Double-click it to crop it by its sides. With a stylus, a finger only moves the board once the pen has touched it. Draw a rough box, ring, line or arrow with the pen and the board offers to make it neat.
  11. Equations, templates and diagramsPress M to write an equation in LaTeX, set by MathJax as you type; double-click it to change it. In More, start from a template, make a diagram from Mermaid or from an outline (one idea a line, details indented under them), or open the library of what you keep to draw again.
  12. Share a linkShare as a link puts the whole board, locked, in the link itself, after the #, which is never sent to any server. Anyone who has the link can open the board; opening one asks before it takes the place of yours.
  13. PresentEach frame is a slide. Press Present (F5) and use the arrow keys to go through them; press and drag to point with the laser, which fades. The laser (K) works on the board too.
  14. Save itSave a PNG, an SVG or a PDF to share (a page for each frame, or one frame alone), or the board itself as a .excalidraw file to open and change later, here or in Excalidraw. Turn on Keep this board on this device to find it again when you come back.
Every option explained
Sloppiness
Straight draws neat lines, Hand-drawn wobbles a little as a marker would, and Rough draws loosely. Each shape keeps its own wobble: it looks the same every time it is drawn and in every picture saved.
Fill style
Hatched and Cross-hatched fill a shape with pen strokes, Solid fills it flat and Zigzag with one line back and forth. A shape with no fill is chosen by its outline, so that you can reach what is behind it.
Board file (.excalidraw)
The board as it is, every shape, line, word and frame, to open and change again. It is the format Excalidraw uses, so boards go both ways, pictures included, and what is copied pastes into either. The board says when it leaves something out, such as an embedded web page.
Board inside the picture
A PNG or SVG saved with this on carries the board in it, so opening the picture here (or in Excalidraw) gives back the board to change. Turn it off for a smaller file that is only a picture.
Fonts
Hand is Architects Daughter, Normal is Nunito and Code is Geist Mono, all made for the screen and free to use. Words from boards made elsewhere are shown in the nearest of these and laid out again.
Arrows that hold shapes
An arrow's end dropped on a shape, or close to its edge, holds that shape: the arrow aims at the point it was dropped on and stops just short of the outline. Drag the arrow away by itself and it lets go; move it with its shapes and it keeps them.
Elbow arrows
They go only across and down, keep clear of the shapes at their ends and take as few turns as they can. Drag a middle stretch to put it where you want; it stays there when the shapes move.
Pasting from a spreadsheet
Copy two columns, a name and a number on each row, and paste them on the board: they become a bar chart made of ordinary shapes and words, which you can change like anything else. Text that is not a table becomes words.
Every command, sizes and places
⌘/ or Ctrl+/ lists every command to run by typing a few letters. Alt+/ shows where the chosen thing is and how large, to type exact numbers. ⌘F finds words. Alt+Z puts the panels away; Alt+R lets you look without changing anything.
Keep this board on this device
Off unless you turn it on, each time the page opens. On, the board is kept in this browser after every change, so it is still there if the page closes; the next time, the page offers to open it. Turning it off deletes it.
Dark theme
In the dark theme the board is shown light-on-dark, and colours turn with it so that a red stays red. The colours saved in the board do not change. A picture is saved light unless you ask for a dark one.
Privacy
Everything is drawn and saved in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account.
Read the step-by-step guide

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