excalidraw-render

Clean, deterministic, browser-free renderer for .excalidraw files. Pure Python + cairosvg. No Node, no headless browser, no node-canvas.

pip install excalidraw-render

excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw                    # → diagram.png
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw -f svg             # → diagram.svg
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw -f pdf             # → diagram.pdf (vector)
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw --width 1200       # PNG at 1200px wide
excalidraw-render ./docs/                               # batch: every .excalidraw → .png
excalidraw-render ./docs/ --watch                       # re-render on every save

Why this exists

The Excalidraw ecosystem's existing exporters either need Node + node-canvas (excalidraw_export) or a headless browser running React (@excalidraw/excalidraw). Both are heavy, fragile in CI, and slow to start.

excalidraw-render is Python + cairosvg. Single-digit-megabyte install, instant startup, no native canvas libs, no Chromium. Useful for:

• Static-site generators (Hugo, MkDocs, Sphinx) baking .excalidraw to PNG at build time
• CI/screenshot pipelines where pulling Chromium is overkill
• Doc + slide generators that want predictable, deterministic vector output
• Terminal viewers (Kitty, iTerm2, Sixel) — on the roadmap

Trade-off: no hand-drawn style

Excalidraw's signature squiggly look comes from roughjs, a JavaScript library with no native Python port. excalidraw-render produces clean vector output instead. This is a deliberate trade-off — clean output is what most doc / slide / report pipelines actually want, and skipping roughjs removes the heaviest dependency.

A pure-Python roughjs port (pyroughjs) is on the roadmap. Until then, if you need the hand-drawn look, use Excalidraw's official export.

Comparison

	excalidraw-render	excalidraw_export	@excalidraw/excalidraw
Language	Python	Node	React + Node
Hand-drawn (roughjs)	No (planned)	Yes	Yes
PNG output	Yes	via rsvg-convert	Yes
SVG output	Yes	Yes	Yes
PDF output	Yes	via rsvg-convert	No
Headless browser needed	No	No	Yes
Native canvas / image libs	No	Yes (node-canvas)	No
Install size	~10 MB	~150 MB	Depends
Batch / watch mode	Yes	No	No
Terminal protocols	Planned (iTerm / Kitty / Sixel)	No	No

Install

pip install excalidraw-render

On Linux you may need libcairo2:

sudo apt-get install libcairo2          # Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dnf install cairo                  # Fedora
sudo pacman -S cairo                    # Arch

On macOS, Cairo is typically already present via Homebrew. If not:

brew install cairo

Usage

CLI

# Single file → PNG next to source
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw

# Specify output + format
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw -o /tmp/out.svg -f svg

# Higher resolution PNG
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw --width 1600

# Or scale instead of fixed width
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw --scale 2.0

# Transparent background
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw --no-background

# Vector PDF / compressed JPEG
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw -f pdf
excalidraw-render diagram.excalidraw -f jpg --quality 85

# Batch mode: every .excalidraw in a directory
excalidraw-render ./docs/diagrams/ -o ./public/diagrams/

# Watch mode: re-render on every save (single file or directory)
excalidraw-render ./docs/diagrams/ --watch

Python API

from excalidraw_render.render import load_scene, render_svg, render_png, render_pdf, render_jpg

scene = load_scene("diagram.excalidraw")

# SVG as a string
svg = render_svg(scene)

# PNG to a file
render_png(scene, "diagram.png", width=1200)

# Vector PDF / JPEG
render_pdf(scene, "diagram.pdf")
render_jpg(scene, "diagram.jpg", quality=85)

# PNG to a binary stream
import io
buf = io.BytesIO()
render_png(scene, buf, scale=2.0)

What's supported

Formats: PNG, SVG, vector PDF, JPEG. Elements: rectangle, ellipse, diamond, arrow, line, text, freedraw, image, frame. Arrowheads: arrow, triangle, triangle_outline, bar, dot, diamond, diamond_outline, crowfoot_one, crowfoot_many, crowfoot_one_or_many. Styling: stroke color/width, fill color, fill patterns (hachure, cross-hatch, zigzag, dots, dashed — clean SVG-pattern approximations of the roughjs originals), stroke style (solid/dashed/dotted), opacity, per-element rotation. Text: multi-line, text-align (left/center/right), vertical-align (top/middle/bottom), Excalidraw font families mapped to web-safe fonts. Container-bound text (labels inside rectangles, ellipses, diamonds) is positioned with Excalidraw's own padding-aware layout algorithm and rotates with its container. Freedraw: smooth path via Catmull-Rom → cubic Bezier conversion. Image: embedded raster data from the scene's files dict. Frame: dashed boundary box with optional label.

Coverage matrix: docs/elements.md.

What's not supported yet

See ROADMAP.md for the full release ladder to 1.0. Highlights:

• Roughness / hand-drawn look (needs roughjs port — planned for 0.7.0)
• Markdown preprocessor subcommand (0.5.0)
• Terminal output (iTerm / Kitty / Sixel) (0.6.0)

Contributing

This is pre-alpha and breaking changes between minor versions are likely until v1.0. Issues, ideas, and PRs welcome — please file at https://github.com/shivama205/excalidraw-render/issues.

Local dev:

git clone https://github.com/shivama205/excalidraw-render
cd excalidraw-render
python -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -e ".[dev]"
.venv/bin/pytest
.venv/bin/ruff check src tests
.venv/bin/mypy src

License

MIT — see LICENSE.