Simple technical illustration software/tools?

[forrestc]

I'm struggling to find the right tool - I'm guessing it probably doesn't exist all in one tool but it doesn't hurt to ask.

I need to draw some semi-technical drawings on a fairly regular basis. These are the types of drawings you'd see in a user manual or online as part of a guide on how to do something. Quite often, they're wiring diagrams or other diagrams showing how to do something slightly mechanical, etc.   Most are for teaching and/or assembly instruction type purposes.

I've tried a lot of tools, and had started describing what I liked about each, but instead maybe I should just put what I'd like into a list, so here goes:

• Ability to paste clipart or other images
• Text tool optimized for adding text to images.  For example, being able to place a contrasting 'outline' in order to make the text stand out from the image
• Various easy to use 'callout' tools.  I.E. arrows and balloons.    I'm not talking about clipart of these elements - actually being able to draw a callout of a few styles is needed
• Line tool which is optimized for connecting two points on two objects.  i.e. I want to draw a line between two connector pins and have it look like a wire instead of a square line with poorly-connected corners.   It's amazing how many tools let you draw lines, but don't make it easy to "connect" two objects with a line, or worse, think a bezier curve is the solution for anything curvy.
• Useful coloring options for lines - for example, I need to be able to represent wires that are 'white with green stripes'.  I don't care if it's alternating white/green dashes with a black outline, or if they're angled or something else, but I do need to be able to represent them
• Visually good looking results from above.   Don't want horrible text rendering, want my callouts to be visually nice as well.  This means that the software probably is a bit 'graphically opinionated'.  I can live with someone else's design choices here as long as the result is usable

I'm sure I've left some things off, but I think this gives at least the gist of what I'm looking for - a simple way to markup or draw images which are of the type that you need to draw to explain some technical concept to someone else in electricity/electronics, but without resorting to full-blown CAD software or doing a schematic (that a lot of people can't read anyways).

Some things I've tried:  Snagit editor hits most of the points here, but their line tool is atrocious.   Smartdraw has a good line tool (except alternating color options), but is pretty dismal everywhere else.   Visio is just a PITA licensing wise and it isn't really what I'm looking for.  I've tried various CAD packages, but that's CAD and either you spend a lot of time doing 3D or you end up with a mechanical drawing which isn't the goal here.  Photoshop and similar tools are too feature rich (but they're great if you want to do it all by hand).  I could go on, but I won't.

So, anyone have a quick drawing tool they like which allows them to produce good looking drawings without a lot of work?

[Alex Eisenhut]

I would say Libre Office Draw but it's a huge install and slow and lumbering, but does get you a drawing package that I think might do the job

[NiHaoMike]

Have you tried Dia or Inkscape?

[CatalinaWOW]

PowerPoint was what I used before I retired.  In corporate environments licensing isn't an issue. It checks most of your boxes, but is weak on the connecting line feature.   I have little experience with LibreOffice Draw but it should come close.  Recent releases of LibreOffice are not as slow and clunky as earlier versions.

Both these programs are relatively easily accessible by the recipients of your material, a big advantage over the more specialized stuff out there.

[jonpaul]

We used old JASC Paintshop Pro 7

  free  ... decades old.

http://www.oldversion.com/windows/paint-shop-pro-7-0

 

Jon

[SiliconWizard]

These days I use a mix of tools depending on what exactly I want to illustrate. yEd is my go-to tool for block diagrams: http://www.yworks.com/products/yed
You can insert images. But it's a diagramming tool at heart, so there are benefits and constraints that go with that.

Otherwise, for something more flexible, Inkscape is good: https://inkscape.org/

For block diagrams that can be generated from a text representation (which can be automated), there is the venerable graphviz: https://graphviz.gitlab.io/
and d2, which I've discovered as of late, and while simple, is not too bad either: https://d2lang.com/

[Faranight]

The Draw.io is online and free to use: https://app.diagrams.net Back in the days I also used Wondershare EdrawMax. Although it's a paid version, I found it very useful and fully featured.

[selcuk]

I think you need to spend time for a good looking drawing. For user manuals, datasheets etc. I can recommend inkscape + scribus. You can prepare complex vector graphics with inkscape and import them to scribus to do the rest of the document. You can do drawings with scribus as well but inkscape has a more range of tools.

[nctnico]

Nowadays  I find myself using the online wordprocessing and presentation tools from Google quite a lot for this purpose. It works quite well and is easy to share. All you need is a free Google account.

[Stray Electron]

   I don't do that kind of work but I would suggest that you look at GIMP. I think it will do everything that you want. And it's been released to the public domain so it will probably be available for a LONG time, unlike some of the other photo editors that have how gotten insanely expensive. And it is available for Apple, Windows and Linux.

   About 10 or 15 years ago my wife did a lot of reasonable simple drawings with drawings and text and flow charts etc for her work  with Power Point and they turned out very well but I don't know what the licensing for PP is like today or, if like some of the other products, it has gotten too complicated for simple tasks.

[forrestc]

I would say Libre Office Draw but it's a huge install and slow and lumbering, but does get you a drawing package that I think might do the job

I've been using LibreOffice for many years, but I hadn't played with draw for ... well, let's just say a long time.  It used to be just not good.

At first glance, this seems like it has improved quite a bit, I'll give it a good shot.   The first impressions are that the tools work like I'd like, it's just styling that I'll have to mess with.

[forrestc]

Have you tried Dia or Inkscape?

Unfortunately Dia hasn't been updated for a long time (almost 10 years), and it isn't really the tool I'm looking for in it's present form due to it's rather plain graphics style.

Inkscape is a great drawing tool.  I used to use it quite a bit before I ended up with an Adobe Creative Cloud Subscription with Adobe Illustrator which is a very similar commercial program.    The problem I have with both for what I'm looking for here is that while it's a great drawing tool, it isn't great for quick production of the illustrations I'm needing to do.   In the programming world I'd call what I'm looking for "opinionated", meaning the creator has made a lot of decisions for you about what works well so you don't have to think about it that much.  I.E. when you put text on top of an image you by default get a contrasting outline around text, or a connector line does at least something which might be correct if you click on the two "connection" points - it does all the curves in the middle.   

Inkscape and Illustrator (and for that matter, many drawing softwares) are more of a "here are all the tools you need to do a drawing, good luck" type of tools, whereas I'm hoping for something which is more end-purpose-focused on "educational drawings" where I don't have to be an artist or take the time to do artist-like stuff.

[Infraviolet]

For anything assembly related or mechanical, I'd always recommend taking screenshots or doing renders within the CAD package you designed the parts in. If for no other reason that that you already have everything modelled in there, and already know the CAD program's interface well. Usually it helps if you turn on visual settings within the CAD software to make edge lines (lines marking outlines or hard/sharp edges) bold and fat, and if you hide lines which divide up smooth curves in to fla faces (if it is a mesh type model where everything is a triangle or quad if you zoom in enough). You'll usually want perspective view rather than the orthographic many packages use as default. You can then post-process these renders/screenshots a bit further in GIMP or Photoshop (or equivalent) to further hide irrelevant details and highlight important ones.

GIMP has a downloadable arrow plugin that lets you draw arrows with two or three clicks, and makes overlaying text easy. And there are methods to make both arrow and text have a contrasting outline (black text with a thin white border or such) which makes it clearly visible even atop a chaotic brightly coloured background image. As far as arrows go, you can also often add them within the CAD package before rendering.

[forrestc]

I think you need to spend time for a good looking drawing. For user manuals, datasheets etc. I can recommend inkscape + scribus. You can prepare complex vector graphics with inkscape and import them to scribus to do the rest of the document. You can do drawings with scribus as well but inkscape has a more range of tools.

One thing I should have probably mentioned is that I have and use the entire Adobe Creative Cloud suite that has Adobe Illustrator which I use fairly heavily.  For things that are "permanent" I'm going to spend a lot of time getting things right using illustrator and other tools.  This includes such silly things like color grading all the raw images and ensuring font sizes/types and line styles are consistent across documents, and so on.

This is more for responses to tech support-type questions like "I'm trying to wire your widget up to my thingamajig and can't figure it out".   Often this means taking our stock photo of our widget and then grabbing a picture/screen grab of the thingamajig and then drawing 'wires' between them.    Sometimes callouts are needed.  Sometimes, other elements, such as simple text.   I don't want to spend hours on a single response.  Instead, I want to take 5 minutes to produce something serviceable that doesn't look like I spent 5 minutes on it and that I have no pride in my work.   

I think a lot of my underlying issue is that I have and continue to do various pieces of graphic design, and it pains me to send out really bad drawings.  I guess I really want a tool that lets me quickly throw together a not-perfect drawing that, at a minimum, doesn't have the egregious sins that you end up with in most drawing programs.  For example, scaling callout 'art' shouldn't also stretch the 'arrow' part of the callout (which I'm also finding to be a common sin of this type of software). 

[Nominal Animal]

Configuring Inkscape to your workflow, paying extra attention to preset grids you can enable/disable, scaling options you already mentioned, and using advanced snapping options to do the details, is a must in my opinion.  Inkscape has many per-document settings, but also "global" user interface settings; tuning all those, perhaps with a few custom templates for typical work, is a lot of work, but in the end, worth it.

Here's a few I've drawn in Inkscape just for fun, illustrating technical discussions and questions and answers here and elsewhere:

^{(Click to view larger/smaller)}

I can't say whether I'd consider them proper illustrations or just doodles, because I don't spend much time on these – only enough to get my idea/argument across – but they're definitely technical.  If you can't tell, I use at least one grid in every SVG illustration I create. 

As to plots and such, I usually use gnuplot (curves) or Graphviz (graphs) to generate the SVG, then finesse it a bit in Inkscape.  (At minimum, I convert text to paths, so that it renders the same way for everyone regardless of available fonts.)

[mendip_discovery]

Adobe stuff is very good but it does have its moments where it wont do what you want becuase it is trying to second guess what you are doing and does the wrong thing.

You might find it worth getting some tuition on using it for what you want. There is plenty of scripting options that might help your workflow but you need to know the right incantions to get it to work. I miss macromedia and their program called Freehand, that was really easy to draw with but it got bought out by Adobe where they killed the software off, even the golden goose aka Flash.

[LaserSteve]

Cad Standard by Apperson and Daughters
www.cadstd.com.  Nice niche 8 layer 2d Cad app. Pro version is worth it. If it only supported symbols and a merge tool, , it would be perfect.

Steve

[SiliconWizard]

Cad Standard by Apperson and Daughters
www.cadstd.com.  Nice niche 8 layer 2d Cad app. Pro version is worth it. If it only supported symbols and a merge tool, , it would be perfect.

Looks like a nice tool, to be fair. And the "pro" license is pretty cheap too. Seems to be Windows-only, which some will not like, but it does look like one of those nicely-written Windows programs of the old days.

[EPAIII]

I prefer using a 2D drafting program for my design work that does not require 3D. Most 2D drafting programs will allow you to create a library of parts to suit whatever style of work you want to do. Schematic symbols, your balloon bubbles, logic symbols, etc. All can be created in libraries and then used with a click or two in your drawings.

I am working on learning and converting to QCAD since my preferred 2D CAD program is no longer supported. Converting drawings from one to the other, creating part libraries to suit my needs, etc.

Oh, and most 2D CAD programs will allow you to import an image and either draw over it or directly include it in the drawing you are creating.

The trick with getting your lines to meet cleanly with other lines or with features on an object is to use a grid and having the points on that line SNAP to that grid. With everything on the grid. it all lines up.

You mention lines that look like wires. While I don't like illustrations that try to "look like" a bird's nest of wires, you can create curved lines that pass through all the points that you click on. With them, it is fairly easy to run from one point on one object to a second point on a second object.

What's that leave? Oh, lines with different colors. That's one I have never seen in technical drawings. Is this for a kindergarten? The way I have ALWAYS seen this handled is with text next to the wire that describes the colors.

[nctnico]

What's that leave? Oh, lines with different colors. That's one I have never seen in technical drawings. Is this for a kindergarten? The way I have ALWAYS seen this handled is with text next to the wire that describes the colors.

You are so wrong here. Colored lines are an immense help to simply connection diagrams. Ofcourse you can't use an endless amount of colors (especially with keeping color blind people in mind), but still, coloring important lines helps a lot to convey information quickly. It is much easier to check correct order of colors compared to a drawing than compared a tag on wires.

[Nominal Animal]

One trick I use extensively in both Inkscape and EasyEDA for crossing lines, is using a short thicker line segment between the crossing lines in stacking order, parallel to the topmost line, to create very thin apparent "breaks" in the lower line.  I believe it makes schematic diagrams easier to read.  Consider the following display adapter schematic as an example:

Yes, I do always use the dots to show a connection, and never do four-way connections, but I believe the apparent breaks help perceive the diagram correctly faster.

Note that in the EasyEDA schematic, there is no break in the line: the break is only a visual effect caused by a thick background-colored "art line" placed between the wires in the stacking order.  Thus, this is purely a visual effect, and does not affect connectivity or DRC (design rules checks).

KiCAD currently draws all wires separately from art lines, and does not support changing the order in which they are drawn (although the file format specifies such an order).

In the above schematic, I've also used the color of the wires to roughly group their purpose: black for ground, red for supply, green for parallel bus data lines, and blue for various other logic level signals.  I'm sure it would not pass a professional review, and proper EE PCB designers would laugh at it, but as an illustration/schematic for hobbyists, it for sure works.  (Although I'd use a proper current source for the backlight LEDs instead of a 25 ohm resistance, as discussed in one of the threads I started about driving backlight LEDs, with options to balance the current if the four backlight LEDs weren't matched well enough.  And some of the not connected logic pins might be better tied to ground or VCC, depending on the display controller chip preferences.)

[shabaz]

I am quite addicted to color (depends on the audience and target medium of course, but I think a general audience appreciates color, not everyone is into black-and-white technical drawings for information!). Sometimes to restrain myself, I'll chose a palette of just 2-3 colors and hammer them repeatedly. And sometimes (I hate it but it makes sense) I'll ask myself "what would Apple do" and re-do an entire diagram just to simplify even further if I can, to strip out further stuff, rearrange with hindsight, etc.

[EPAIII]

If you say so.

What's that leave? Oh, lines with different colors. That's one I have never seen in technical drawings. Is this for a kindergarten? The way I have ALWAYS seen this handled is with text next to the wire that describes the colors.

You are so wrong here. Colored lines are an immense help to simply connection diagrams. Ofcourse you can't use an endless amount of colors (especially with keeping color blind people in mind), but still, coloring important lines helps a lot to convey information quickly. It is much easier to check correct order of colors compared to a drawing than compared a tag on wires.

[EPAIII]

I thought of using one line on top of another, with different colors and the top line being a dashed one. However, it is a bit of trouble to draw lines that way.

I have actually drawn a part in my electronic symbols library which used that idea. It is a "bridge" that can be placed over a place where two wires cross at a right angle. I used a white line to cover the horizontal line "under the bridge". It works quite well but it is a library "part" that can be used with just one or two mouse clicks. Drawing individual lines that way would require a lot more work and it would need to be done for each multi-color line.

Or now that I think a bit, perhaps at least a horizontal and a vertical line could also be created as parts in that library. I may look at that.

Also some CAD programs allow the user to create new line styles. My old 2D CAD allowed that but I don't think different colors could be used. My new one, QCAD, doesn't seem to do that but it could be suggested to the people in charge of software development.

Oh, and one thing that I like to find in any drafting program that I use is the availability of of the software developers. The lack of that is one big reason why I did not and still do not like the "industry standard" AutoCAD. Sure you could submit suggestions. But you were not allowed to discuss them with the programmers unless they choose to contact you.

The 2D CAD program that I did purchase those many decades ago, EasyCAD, had a discussion group, likt this one, and the head programmer who was also the head of the company WAS PRESENT on that site every day. In fact I once posted about a problem that I found and he became aware of it the same day. When I returned to the group the NEXT day he had posted the availability, at no extra charge, a revised version of the program that completely fixed that problem. THE VERY NEXT DAY!

Neither AutoCAD nor any other expensive 2D CAD program ever gave that kind of service.

When I was looking for a new 2D program, one of the things that I wanted was that kind of commitment from the software engineers. I discovered that QCAD had a similar group and I joined before purchasing the program. I discovered that some of the ones who almost immediately answered my questions, were indeed in that group of programmers. And I could and DID have conversations with them about features in that program. I like that. I think that is important when considering which program to use because sooner or later you are going to find a bug that needs to be fixed or to want a new feature. And, as they said in that motion picture, "Who yo gonna call?"

One trick I use extensively in both Inkscape and EasyEDA for crossing lines, is using a short thicker line segment between the crossing lines in stacking order, parallel to the topmost line, to create very thin apparent "breaks" in the lower line.  I believe it makes schematic diagrams easier to read.  Consider the following display adapter schematic as an example:

Yes, I do always use the dots to show a connection, and never do four-way connections, but I believe the apparent breaks help perceive the diagram correctly faster.

Note that in the EasyEDA schematic, there is no break in the line: the break is only a visual effect caused by a thick background-colored "art line" placed between the wires in the stacking order.  Thus, this is purely a visual effect, and does not affect connectivity or DRC (design rules checks).

KiCAD currently draws all wires separately from art lines, and does not support changing the order in which they are drawn (although the file format specifies such an order).

In the above schematic, I've also used the color of the wires to roughly group their purpose: black for ground, red for supply, green for parallel bus data lines, and blue for various other logic level signals.  I'm sure it would not pass a professional review, and proper EE PCB designers would laugh at it, but as an illustration/schematic for hobbyists, it for sure works.  (Although I'd use a proper current source for the backlight LEDs instead of a 25 ohm resistance, as discussed in one of the threads I started about driving backlight LEDs, with options to balance the current if the four backlight LEDs weren't matched well enough.  And some of the not connected logic pins might be better tied to ground or VCC, depending on the display controller chip preferences.)

[tggzzz]

I am quite addicted to color

8% of men and 0.1% of women have a form of colour blindness.

And some of those diagrams seriously suck. Reminds me of "GeoCities" concept of "neat".

Here's what it looks like to someone with a three different simple colour defects:






https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/