# Excalidraw canvas and tools

Excalidraw's toolbar is short on purpose. Everything you need is a single keystroke away, and the tools themselves are deliberately imprecise, which is the point.

Set up the canvas first: grid on or off, and a background that suits where the diagram will be read.

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## What this is for

* Starting a sketch or workshop diagram.
* Getting the canvas to snap, or to stop snapping.
* Setting a background for a diagram that will be exported.

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## How it works

![The Excalidraw toolbar showing lock, hand, selection, rectangle, diamond, ellipse, arrow, line, draw, text and eraser tools, each with a number beside it.](https://help.gocapable.com/images/809229f0-ee4e-4714-826a-24d933d15240.webp)

Every tool carries the number that selects it from the keyboard, from selection through to the eraser.

| **Action**                  | **How**                                                     |
| --------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| Select tool                 | V or 1\. Escape also returns you to it.                     |
| Rectangle, diamond, ellipse | R, D and O, or 2, 3 and 4.                                  |
| Arrow and line              | A and L, or 5 and 6.                                        |
| Freedraw                    | P or 7, for genuinely hand-drawn marks.                     |
| Pan                         | Hold space and drag, or use the hand tool.                  |
| Zoom to fit                 | Shift+1.                                                    |
| Grid                        | Ctrl+' toggles it. Snapping follows the grid when it is on. |

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## A few things that catch people out

* Escape always returns to the select tool, which is the fastest way out of any state.
* Shift+1 fits everything, and is the equivalent of draw.io's Ctrl+Shift+H.
* The canvas background is part of the scene and appears in exports.

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## Related

[Draw and style elementsStroke, fill, sloppiness and edges.](https://help.gocapable.com/diagrams/draw-and-style-elements.html)

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

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

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_Rough on purpose._