Excalidraw is a sketch-style diagramming tool for drawing diagrams, wireframes, maps, and visual notes.
In Obsidian, Excalidraw is usually used through the Obsidian Excalidraw community plugin. It works well for freeform drawings that are hard to express with text-only tools like Mermaid, PlantUML, or Graphviz.
Good use cases:
- Hand-drawn architecture sketches
- Spatial notes
- Rough diagrams
- Whiteboard-style explanations
- Annotated workflows
- UI sketches
Quartz
Excalidraw is not Markdown-native in the same way as Mermaid. Quartz does not normally run the Obsidian Excalidraw plugin, so an Excalidraw source file should be exported before publishing.
For Quartz, the practical workflow is:
- Create or edit the drawing in Obsidian using Excalidraw.
- Export the drawing as SVG or PNG.
- Embed the exported image in the Markdown note.
- Keep the Excalidraw source file if the drawing needs to remain editable.
SVG is usually the best export format for diagrams because it stays sharp at different sizes. PNG is useful when compatibility matters or when the drawing has raster content.
Mermaid vs Excalidraw
Use Mermaid first when the diagram can be described clearly as text and should render directly in Obsidian and Quartz.
Use Excalidraw when the diagram is spatial, sketch-like, or easier to draw than describe in a formal diagram language.
Rule of thumb:
- Mermaid for structured diagrams in Markdown
- Excalidraw for freeform visual thinking
- PlantUML for detailed UML
- Graphviz for automatic graph layout