# Draw and style elements

Excalidraw's styling options are few and well chosen. The two that matter most are sloppiness, which controls how hand-drawn it looks, and edges, which switches between sharp and rounded corners.

Set the style before drawing and it applies to everything you draw next.

![image-20260907-085203.png](https://help.gocapable.com/images/9167b4a2-20e1-482a-be57-c9410d9732bc.webp)

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## What this is for

* Making a sketch look consistent.
* Adjusting how rough or how neat a diagram appears.
* Highlighting one element among many.

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## How it works

| **Action**             | **How**                                                                        |
| ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Stroke colour          | The left panel, with an element selected or nothing selected for the next one. |
| Background             | The fill colour, with hachure, cross-hatch or solid fill styles.               |
| Fill style             | Hachure is the default sketchy fill; solid is the clean one.                   |
| Stroke width and style | Thin to extra bold, solid, dashed or dotted.                                   |
| Sloppiness             | Architect, artist or cartoonist: how hand-drawn the lines look.                |
| Edges                  | Sharp or round corners.                                                        |
| Opacity                | A slider, useful for backgrounds and de-emphasis.                              |

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## A few things that catch people out

* Styles set with nothing selected become the defaults for new elements, which is the fast way to work.
* Sloppiness set to architect looks nearly clean, which is often the right compromise.
* Opacity is the polite way to de-emphasise something without deleting it.

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## Related

[Text and fonts in ExcalidrawLabels, and the eight font families.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/text-and-fonts-in-excalidraw.html)

[Arrows, groups and framesBindings that follow, and sections that move.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/arrows-groups-and-frames.html)

[Excalidraw editorBack to the editor overview.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/excalidraw-editor.html)

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_Rough on purpose._