Why does the text in my diagram look wrong?
About 2 min · Updated 2026-09-13
Two different problems. Missing glyphs or cramped labels are a font and theme question. Characters that break the parse are usually full-width punctuation — that's a syntax error, not a display one.
Short answer
Diagrams render with the system font stack, so labels in any language your device has fonts for come out correctly. When something really does break, it's usually the other problem: full-width punctuation in the code, which is a parse error rather than a rendering one.
It renders, it just looks cramped
Switch the theme. The strip above the preview has six, and several were tuned for dense CJK labels — weight, line height and contrast all differ from the default. Lite adds a custom primary color that generates a whole palette.
It errors on a line that looks fine
That's full-width punctuation. Characters like （）「」，： from a CJK keyboard look like their ASCII counterparts but aren't. The rule:
- Structural punctuation — node brackets, arrows, colons, commas — must be ASCII
- Inside a label, any punctuation is fine
So A[Order (with coupon)] with full-width parens inside the label is fine, while using full-width parens as the node delimiters is not.
Exported files
Word and PowerPoint exports embed the diagram as a bitmap, so the fonts are already baked in — the file looks the same on a machine that doesn't have them.
Try it
flowchart TD
A[Submit request] --> B{Over 5,000?}
B -- Yes --> C[Director approves]
B -- No --> D[Manager approves]
C --> E([Archive])
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