What was happening on the scene in February

Hey, Excalidraw fans! ??

While we stayed busy behind the scenes working on big upcoming improvements in February, we also took the opportunity to highlight key features, share useful tips and tricks, and showcase how the community is using Excalidraw in creative ways.

Here’s a quick look at what’s been happening in February!

Dev+Product Edition: Deep Focus, Feature Reminders & Sneak Peek

February was all about deep focus on big improvements coming to both the?free editor and Excalidraw+. While these updates are in progress, we used this time to refresh key features you might have missed!

???Mastering Mind Maps with Excalidraw: Feeling overwhelmed by scattered ideas??Mind maps help organize thoughts, set clear goals, and boost productivity. One of our latest YouTube videos?walks you through?how to create one efficiently using shortcuts.

???Snapping to Objects Reminder: Excalidraw embraces imperfection, but sometimes precision matters. That’s where Snap to objects comes in! Simply right-click the canvas to toggle snapping via the context menu, or open the Command palette (via menu) to enable it. ??

Want to temporarily enable/disable snapping? Just hold Cmd while moving an object!

???Sneak Peek at What’s Coming:?In the coming weeks and months, you can look forward to an NPM package update, a lasso tool, enhanced flowchart navigation, and more. So stay tuned! ??

Social Media Edition: Community Love, Productivity Hacks, and YouTube Highlights

???#SharingIsCaring: Our community was thriving in February, and we loved sharing your amazing?use cases and stories! ??

• Flowcharts and mind maps?are popular, but Excalidraw also?excels at low-fidelity wireframing. With?community libraries, you can sketch UI ideas even faster! Thanks to?Ronith Bal?for sharing his workflow with us.

• We’re always excited to see?Excalidraw in action! A great real-world example came from?Rohan J, who used Excalidraw to?teach Java and Data Structures, helping students?map out their logic visually before jumping into code.

• Mohamed Yasser ?demonstrated how to?combine external AI services for prompt generation?with Mermaid to Excalidraw feature. But if you want to?work even faster, try?Text to Diagram, which does both steps at once!

??This or That: In February, we shared a few tips and tricks to help improve your workflow!

• Scattered Effort vs. Focused Work?– This one reminded us that?multitasking might feel productive, but focused effort always wins.

• Mind Full vs. Mindful?– This one showed us that simple strategies like mind maps, brain dumps, and single-tasking can clear your mind and boost productivity.

???Valentine’s Day Message: This February, we took a moment to celebrate?love beyond romance—in small, everyday actions. A kind word, a shared moment, or even?helping someone simplify their workflow?can all be ways to?show you care.

???YouTube Channel Highlights:?Over the past few weeks, we’ve shared blog post and visual scene covering everything we introduced in 2024. But we couldn’t miss the chance to showcase these updates in action! So if you prefer seeing features in motion rather than reading about them, the video below is for you—make sure to check it out!

PS:?Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel?to stay updated with the latest content!

Question of the Month

???Can I set a specific text size?

Even though?Excalidraw is all about simplicity, helping you?work quickly with predefined options, you can still be precise when needed.

If you want to set a specific text size, just open?Canvas & Shape properties?(either by?right-clicking on the canvas?or using the?Command palette). Once you select a text element (or any element containing text), you’ll find the option to?adjust its size?at the bottom of this section (as shown below).

And that’s a wrap for February! We hope you found this month’s updates useful and inspiring. While we continue refining Excalidraw’s biggest features behind the scenes, we’ll keep sharing tips, tricks, and community highlights to help you get the most out of the tool.

Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, thank you for being part of the Excalidraw community! ??

The Excalidraw Team