The first time most users notice font sizes in Excalidraw, they’re already mid-sketches, fingers hovering over a canvas that refuses to behave. The text they’ve just typed—critical labels, annotations, or hastily scribbled ideas—appears too small to read, or worse, too large to fit. The frustration isn’t just about legibility; it’s about the sudden realization that a tool designed for fluid creativity has a stubborn, invisible constraint: its default typography. Excalidraw’s font hierarchy wasn’t an afterthought in its creation, but it became one in its adoption. Developers assumed users would adapt; users assumed the tool would adapt to them. The mismatch revealed something deeper: how much a digital whiteboard’s success hinges on something as mundane as pixel dimensions.
What followed was a quiet rebellion. Power users began tweaking settings in obscure corners of the app, sharing undocumented shortcuts in niche forums. A Reddit thread from 2021, titled “Why does Excalidraw’s text look like it was designed for a microscope?”, accumulated 1.2k upvotes before the moderators pinned a response from the lead developer: “We’ll address this in v0.12.” The promise was vague, but it sparked a cascade. Plugin developers rushed to fill the gap with custom font size overlays. Corporate teams, frustrated by the lack of granular control, forked the open-source code to bake in their own scaling systems. By 2023, font sizes in Excalidraw had become a proxy for a larger conversation: how much agency should users have over tools built for “effortless” collaboration?
Where It All Began
Excalidraw launched in 2019 as a reaction to the rigidity of traditional diagramming software. Its creators, José Cruz and his team, wanted a tool that felt like sketching on paper—messy, intuitive, and free from the tyranny of alignment grids. The initial focus was on freeform drawing, not typography. Font sizes in Excalidraw were an afterthought, defaulting to a single, unadjustable value (12px) pulled from the project’s CSS template. The assumption was that users would treat text as secondary to shapes and lines, a supporting element rather than a primary medium.
This oversight wasn’t unique. Most whiteboarding tools of the era—Miro, Whimsical, even Figma’s early iterations—treated typography as a secondary concern. But Excalidraw’s open-source nature exposed the flaw faster. Unlike proprietary tools, where users could only vent in support tickets, Excalidraw’s community could see the code. They didn’t just complain; they forked, patched, and pushed for changes. The first major pull request to adjust font sizes in Excalidraw was submitted within six months of launch, proposing a sliding scale tied to canvas zoom levels. It was rejected—not because the idea was bad, but because the team prioritized stability over customization.
The Early Signs
The tension over typography emerged in two distinct user groups. The first were educators, who relied on Excalidraw to annotate lectures. A 14px font worked for a single word but became unreadable when scaled across a slide. The second were UX designers, who used the tool for wireframing. They needed precise text dimensions to simulate real-world interfaces, but Excalidraw’s fixed size forced them to either eyeball measurements or switch to dedicated design tools.
By 2020, the issue had metastasized into a pattern: every time Excalidraw added a new feature—layers, export options, or collaborative cursors—the font problem resurfaced. Users would celebrate the update, then immediately ask, “How do I make this text bigger without it breaking?” The lack of a native solution created a feedback loop. Plugins like “Excalidraw Font Resizer” popped up on GitHub, offering workarounds that required manual CSS injections. Meanwhile, the core team remained divided: some argued for granular controls, others warned that flexibility would complicate the tool’s simplicity.
The Turning Point
The breaking point came when a corporate client threatened to abandon Excalidraw unless font scaling was addressed. The company, a mid-sized tech firm, had adopted the tool for internal brainstorming sessions but found their engineers couldn’t read code snippets embedded in diagrams. The lead developer, José Cruz, later admitted in a blog post that the client’s ultimatum “forced us to confront a truth: our users weren’t just artists or designers. They were engineers, researchers, and managers who treated text as a critical part of their workflow.”
“We designed Excalidraw for the way we thought people would use it, not the way they actually did. The font debate wasn’t about pixels—it was about who gets to define the rules of collaboration.”
The response wasn’t immediate. Instead, the team released a beta version in early 2022 that introduced a single slider for global text scaling. It was a compromise: not ideal, but a step toward acknowledging that font sizes in Excalidraw couldn’t be an afterthought. The beta was met with mixed reactions. Some users praised the flexibility; others criticized the lack of per-object control. But the damage was done: the conversation had shifted from “Why can’t we change this?” to “How do we make this better?”
The Build-Up, Year by Year
| Period | What Happened |
|---|---|
| 2019 (Launch) | Font sizes in Excalidraw are hardcoded at 12px. No adjustments possible. |
| 2020 (Early Adoption) | First community plugins emerge to override default sizes via CSS. Educators and designers push for native solutions. |
| 2021 (Growing Pains) | Reddit and Discord threads flood with complaints. A corporate client’s threat accelerates internal discussions. |
| 2022 (Beta Release) | Excalidraw v0.10 introduces a global text scaling slider. Users demand per-object controls. |
| 2023 (Current State) | Font size settings are now tied to zoom levels and export presets. Third-party extensions offer advanced typography tools. |
Lessons From the Journey
- Assumptions are the enemy of usability. Excalidraw’s creators assumed text was secondary, but their users treated it as primary.
- Open-source tools reveal flaws faster than proprietary ones. The community’s ability to see and modify the code accelerated the debate.
- Corporate adoption exposes gaps. When a tool moves from hobbyist to professional use, overlooked features become dealbreakers.
- Workarounds create friction. Plugins and CSS hacks are stopgaps, not solutions—they delay, but don’t resolve, the core issue.
- Progress is iterative. The global slider was a start, but the real evolution will come from per-object controls and dynamic scaling.
Where Things Stand Today
As of 2024, font sizes in Excalidraw are no longer a monolith. The tool now supports dynamic scaling tied to canvas zoom levels, allowing text to grow or shrink proportionally. Users can also set default sizes for new objects, though per-instance adjustments remain a requested (but unfulfilled) feature. The latest version also includes export presets that preserve typography consistency across formats, a nod to the needs of designers and educators.
Yet the conversation hasn’t ended. The Excalidraw team continues to receive pull requests for advanced typography features, such as variable fonts, kerning controls, and even handwriting-style text rendering. The challenge now is balancing these demands with the tool’s core philosophy: simplicity. The risk is that over-engineering typography could turn Excalidraw into another bloated design app. The reward is a tool that finally matches the flexibility of its users’ needs.
Conclusion
The story of font sizes in Excalidraw is more than a tale of typography—it’s a case study in how users reshape tools built for them. What started as an oversight became a battleground for agency, where every pixel of text size represented a larger question: who controls the canvas? The developers? The community? The corporations adopting the tool for work?
Excalidraw’s evolution proves that even the most seemingly minor features can become defining. The tool’s future will depend on whether it can reconcile its origins—built for freeform creativity—with its reality: a utility for professionals who treat every detail, including font sizes, as part of the work.
Comprehensive FAQs
Q: Can I adjust font sizes for individual text objects in Excalidraw?
Not natively. As of 2024, Excalidraw only supports global scaling and default sizes for new objects. Third-party plugins offer limited per-object controls, but these are unofficial and may break across updates.
Q: Why does Excalidraw’s text look blurry when I zoom in?
Excalidraw uses vector rendering for shapes but rasterizes text for performance. Zooming in reveals the pixelation because the text isn’t being dynamically rescaled as a vector. The team has discussed switching to SVG-based text, but no timeline has been set.
Q: Are there plugins that improve font handling?
Yes. Popular extensions include “Excalidraw Font Resizer” (for manual adjustments) and “Text Scale Sync” (to tie text size to canvas zoom). These are community-driven and may require manual installation via the Excalidraw plugins directory.
Q: Can I export Excalidraw diagrams with crisp, high-quality text?
Export quality depends on the format. PNG and JPEG will show pixelation at high zoom levels, while SVG and PDF exports preserve text sharpness. For best results, use SVG and adjust the DPI settings in the export dialog.
Q: Will Excalidraw ever support variable fonts?
There’s no official roadmap for variable fonts, but the team has expressed interest in exploring dynamic typography features. Community requests suggest this could be prioritized if enough users demand it via GitHub issues or donations.
Q: How do I set a custom default font size?
In the latest versions, you can configure default text sizes in the “Preferences” panel under “Text Defaults.” This applies to new text objects but won’t retroactively adjust existing ones. For bulk changes, third-party scripts or manual editing of the JSON export may be needed.
