Schematic

Design tools on a computer add a lot of accuracy to a project of any kind, and saves a lot of time overall. For instance, with Schematic you’re able to create complex electrical schematics with a rich library of components, and export to different file types, or directly print on a sheet of paper.

A neat advantage is that you don’t have to go through the effort of pressing a few “next” buttons to install it, and can run right after download is finished. This way, you can carry it around on a USB flash drive along with project schematics to use on other PCs. A consequence of portability is that system registries remain intact, not affecting the functionality of the target computer.

The interface is clean, with a classic window style housing all features. Most of the space is the canvas, which you can use in a floating window, allowing you to work on multiple schematics at a time. Moreover, each projects can be composed of multiple sheets, stored in tabs for quick access.

A side panel is where all components are found. It can be a little tricky to figure out how to add one, because they can’t be dragged from the library, but rather double-clicking on a canvas spot, while the component of interest is selected. It becomes confusing because in any other case, holding the left mouse button while dragging the cursor over the canvas creates a line connector.

Apart from a large variety of capacitors, diodes, resistors, buffers, and other components, you can also insert labels, and a few geometrical shapes to spice up the design. These can be rotated, connected, and placed anywhere on the canvas. Export options allow you to generate an XML file, EMF, and even the popular PDF format.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that Schematic is a minimalistic, yet powerful electrical schematics designer, which can be used by individuals of all levels of experience, given the proper knowledge. It can take a little while to get to know all features, but in the end, results are accurate, and can be saved under different, popular file types.