Program to make schematics

[DavidDLC]

Hi, do you know a good freeware to make schematics that can be saved on pdf format ?

Please do not mention Eagle, since I cannot use it on my computer.

 

[NiHaoMike]

I use Qucs for simulations and stuff. (Not very much, as it's a lot more fun to play with real components.) For drawing schematics, I generally use paper and scanner since I use a lot of "special" parts.

[DavidDLC]

Nihao xie xie.

I forgot to mention I have Windows 7.

[DJPhil]

For a quick and dirty schematic there's a few options.

I have a copy of Klunky I use. It can be used online or as a download.
LTSpice and other free spice simulators can give you a nice schematic to work with.

You can always use screen capture (print screen key copies to clipboard, paste into drawing program like paint) or window capture (same but with alt + pscr) to get a picture to work with, and then embed it into a pdf. I'm not sure I know of anything that has a native pdf export.

Hope that helps.

[MrPlacid]

For exporting to PDF, i use CutePDF. Every time you want to print something, you press the print in the application you want, and then select the Cute PDF writer as the printer. Instead of printing to a real printer, it'll make a pdf file for you.

[DavidDLC]

Thanks for the replies, I just installed CutePDF and is promising.

Please keep giving recommendations.

[Simon]

there is also expressPCB that is a full schematic and PCB layout software although of course you can just use it for the schematic, there is also KiCAD but that is probably over the top for what you want. I usually use "PrimoPDF printer" to export any document to PDF format

[lhc]

I recomend PDFCreator, works great, has many advanced features and its free (and open source) http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

[Zero999]

PDFCreator is my choice of PDF programs since it can export to other formats including PNG, TIF and SVG, the latter is still a bit buggy though.

[PeterG]

I use Windows 7 and Mac OSX, both work well with Eagle (Free Version). Eagle is one of a very short list that work on both platforms.

[Zero999]

That's one of the good things about Eagle.

Kicad and LTSpice should also work on a Mac as well as Windows XP and above. I don't know about other programs, gEAD probable will you'll probably need to compile it.