https://github.com/tommywalkie/excalidraw-cli
Experimental Excalidraw CLI tool
https://github.com/tommywalkie/excalidraw-cli
cli excalidraw roughjs
Last synced: 17 days ago
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Experimental Excalidraw CLI tool
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/tommywalkie/excalidraw-cli
- Owner: tommywalkie
- License: mit
- Created: 2020-06-16T13:32:01.000Z (over 5 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2023-01-09T02:08:10.000Z (almost 3 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-06-27T14:15:48.579Z (4 months ago)
- Topics: cli, excalidraw, roughjs
- Language: JavaScript
- Homepage:
- Size: 1.78 MB
- Stars: 31
- Watchers: 2
- Forks: 6
- Open Issues: 16
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# excalidraw-cli
[](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@tommywalkie/excalidraw-cli) [](https://bundlephobia.com/result?p=@tommywalkie/excalidraw-cli@latest) 
Experimental Excalidraw CLI tool.
Parses Excalidraw JSON schemas (`*.excalidraw`) into PNGs (`*.png`).
This project is a follow-up to [excalidraw#1261](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/issues/1261) and strives to provide a CLI for **[excalidraw](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw)**.
_Demo_ ⤴️
## Install
```bash
npm install -g @tommywalkie/excalidraw-cli
```
### Alpine
If using Alpine (e.g. for Docker stuff), install the following packages.
```dockerfile
FROM node:alpine
RUN apk update
RUN apk add --no-cache python g++ build-base cairo-dev jpeg-dev pango-dev \
musl-dev giflib-dev pixman-dev pangomm-dev libjpeg-turbo-dev freetype-dev
```
## Usage
```bash
$ excalidraw-cli --help
Parses Excalidraw JSON schemas into PNGs
USAGE
$ excalidraw-cli [INPUT] [OUTPUT]
ARGUMENTS
INPUT [default: {cwd}] Excalidraw file path / directory path
OUTPUT [default: {cwd}] Output PNG file path / directory path
OPTIONS
-h, --help show CLI help
-q, --quiet disable console outputs
-v, --version show CLI version
```
### Docker
For convenience we have also a Docker image that includes all dependencies out of the box.
#### Build
To build the Docker image run following command.
#### Use
To use the docker image in a convenient way you can add following function to your `.bashrc` or `.zshrc`.
```bash
function excalidraw-cli {
docker run --rm -it -v $PWD:/data excalidraw-cli $@
}
```
Then simply reload your terminal to have this function available.
```bash
$ excalidraw-cli drawings/my-drawing.excalidraw .
✔ drawings/my-drawing.excalidraw => drawings/my-drawing.png
```
## How it works
Currently, [`excalidraw`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/excalidraw) NPM package only exports a React component. `excalidraw-cli` uses **[node-canvas](https://github.com/Automattic/node-canvas)** at its core, this allows to generate canvas without relying on the `window` context, and uses a home-made renderer which tries to _mimic_ Excalidraw's as much as possible, using [**Rough.js**](https://roughjs.com/) API primarily.
Hopefully, `excalidraw-cli` will directly use Excalidraw renderer methods for consistent results, once Excalidraw provides some Node-compatible API.
See the related issue thread [excalidraw#1780](https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw/issues/1780).
## Contributing
> **Note**: Most of the codebase is currently in **ES2017**, it will soon be converted to **TypeScript** for educational purposes, but also for easier integration with Excalidraw.
Install dependencies with `npm` or `yarn`.
```sh
npm install
```
Export fonts, transpile **TypeScript** / **ES2017** source into **CommonJS** for production.
```sh
npm run prepack
```
Test the CLI with the transpiled source code.
```sh
node ./bin/run # Run with Node
npm run excalidraw-cli # Run with NPM script
```
Prepack and launch Jest tests.
```sh
npm run test
```
You can check requested / planned / work-in-progress features in [Projects](https://github.com/tommywalkie/excalidraw-cli/projects).
## License
MIT