Every other tool category I’ve considered has a secondary use - for example, time spent learning Inkscape to draw schematics could be leveraged to use the program for any number of purposes. Learning one of these tools never quite seemed worth the investment, since they are targeted at such a specific niche purpose. A little searching also turns up Tin圜AD, which does output netlists, but also claims high-quality output suitable for publication. The stated goal of this program is to produce quality output for publication, as opposed to schematic capture for further processing. The first one of these I ever encountered was XCircuit, another relic from the good old UNIX days. Stepping up from general-purpose drawing tools, we come to packages dedicated to schematic drawing. One disadvantage of either approach is that you can’t generate netlists to import into simulation or PCB layout tools, but if you’re not going to use either one, this doesn’t matter. The downside is that you’re basically starting from scratch, although some packages may have electronics symbol libraries you can leverage (xfig does, but I don’t like their look). This gives you flexibility to draw them as you like: you’re free to draw your resistors as little boxes, while I’ll keep my squiggles. A convenient way to use a package like this is to build up a library of symbols that you commonly use. There are many more modern alternatives, including Dia and Inkscape, while readers can certainly recommend tools specific to other platforms. I know it shows my *nix graybeardedness, but my go-to drawing program is xfig. Although I admit to drawing a few schematics in Paintbrush under Windows several decades ago, your best bet is probably a vector drawing program. The next step up is virtual pen-and-paper: a general-purpose drawing program. The downside is that if you’re not an artist (or skilled drafting technician), your schematics will certainly reflect this, as mine do. This approach offers the ultimate flexibility – you can generally use anything at hand to draw your circuit, from your antique oak drafting table and Rapidograph pens to a stick in the sand. The field of electronics obviously pre-dates modern computer UI’s, so there is a rich history of hand-drawn schematics just open any book from before the integrated circuit era to see some. The simplest approach is just to take up pen and paper and get to it. Old-school: Drafting Pen-and-paper schematic So, readers of Hackaday, what do you use to convey your electronic design ideas to the world? Each one has its pros and cons, and may be better suited to one specific application, but you have to choose something. There are dozens of choices, from dedicated schematic drawing programs to using the schematic-capture facilities of simulation or PCB design tools, or even old-fashioned pencil-and-paper and its modern equivalents. So, given the importance of the schematic for design and communication, you’d think choosing a tool to draw them would be an easy task. And, if you’ve ever tried to explain a circuit without a schematic - in an on-line forum or over the phone, for instance - you know how difficult it is. Whether it’s literally on the back of an envelope or sketched in the condensation on the shower stall, actually drawing a design or idea makes a huge difference in being able to understand it. Unfortunately, even as my design experience has grown over the years, I haven’t quite learned to think in schematics - I need to see it on paper (or on a screen) to analyze a circuit. I can pick up a datasheet written in Chinese (a language I do not read or speak) and usually get a half-decent idea of what the part is all about from the drawings. The lingua franca of electronic design is the schematic.
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