Drawing & Diagrams
Create freehand drawings and diagrams with the Excalidraw canvas.
The Lex Editor integrates Excalidraw, a full-featured drawing canvas that lets you create diagrams, sketches, and visual aids directly within your lessons.
Excalidraw Integration
Excalidraw is an open-source whiteboard tool that provides a hand-drawn aesthetic. It is embedded directly in the editor as a block element.
What You Can Create
- Diagrams -- flow charts, mind maps, sentence structure trees
- Visual aids -- labeled illustrations, timelines, concept maps
- Annotations on images -- add arrows, text labels, and highlights to images
- Grammar diagrams -- sentence parsing, word relationship diagrams
- Custom illustrations -- any freehand drawing you need
Inserting an Excalidraw Canvas
Open the Insert Menu
Type /excalidraw or select "Drawing" from the Insert menu.
Draw on the Canvas
The Excalidraw editor opens within the block. Use the toolbar to select drawing tools:
- Selection -- select and move elements
- Rectangle, ellipse, diamond -- shapes
- Arrow, line -- connectors and lines
- Text -- add text labels
- Freehand -- draw freehand with a pencil tool
- Eraser -- remove elements
Save and Close
Click outside the canvas or press Escape to close the editor. The drawing is embedded in the lesson as a block.
Editing an Existing Drawing
Click on the drawing block to reopen the Excalidraw editor. All your previous elements are preserved and editable.
Drawing Board Widget
Separate from Excalidraw, the Drawing Board widget is a simpler, collaborative drawing canvas designed for brain break activities during live lessons. See the Drawing Board section in Game Widgets for details.
Key differences:
| Feature | Excalidraw | Drawing Board Widget |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Teacher content creation | Student interactive activity |
| Collaboration | Not real-time | Real-time via Y.js |
| Tools | Full drawing suite | Basic colors and brush |
| Timer | No | Yes |
| Student interaction | View only | Can draw |
Frequently Asked Questions
Can students draw on Excalidraw blocks?
No. Excalidraw blocks are teacher-created content. Students see the drawing but cannot modify it. For student drawing activities, use the Drawing Board widget.
Can I export drawings as images?
You can screenshot or use Excalidraw's built-in export function to save drawings as PNG or SVG files.
Is there a limit to the canvas size?
The canvas is virtually unlimited. You can zoom and pan to work on large diagrams. However, keep in mind that very large drawings may be hard to view on mobile screens.