[sdiy] What's the best freeware schematic capture and PCB layout software

[Donald Tillman]

On May 13, 2024, at 1:01 AM, Sean Ellis via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
> 
> It's been mentioned here that Kicad schematics can look ugly (I dont agree), there are several full sets of symbols that allow it to appear like other software if you'd like. They have full font support for everything unlike most, comic sans for the brave!

Well, anything *can* look ugly.

To be clear... I said "publication quality".  And by that I mean, worthy of a graphic you would see in a textbook.  We have a long history of electronics textbooks with elegant schematic diagrams.  As someone who writes a lot of technical articles, that's the standard I'd like to see.

gEDA gschem allows me to export to PostScript or PDF, and it handles the vector drawing nicely, no rasterization, and it has settings that optimize various graphical elements for the screen and for print, such as colors, line widths, wire endpoints, grids, and much more.

The result is something I can include in a web article, or in a Pages/Word document, and it looks like something you'd see in a proper textbook.

  -- Don
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Donald Tillman, Palo Alto, California
https://www.till.com