How to Draw Electrical Diagrams

Making wiring or electrical diagrams is easy with the proper templates and symbols:

1. Start with a collection of electrical symbols appropriate for your diagram
2. Draw circuits represented by lines
3. Drag and drop symbols to the circuits and connect them
4. Use line hops if any lines need to cross

SmartDraw has the tools and templates for making a variety of engineering and CAD diagrams. Among these you'll find commonly used electrical drawings and schematics, like circuit diagrams, wiring diagrams, and block diagrams. With SmartDraw's vast library of industry-standard electrical symbols and easy drawing tools, anyone - apprentice or pro - can start building electrical diagrams right away.

Start with a Circuit Diagram Template

To make any kind of electrical wiring or schematic diagram in SmartDraw, you'll want to start with the right template. The electrical engineering templates will have the right tools, settings, and libraries to complete your diagram. To find a circuit diagram template, click on the Engineering category under New Document on your Dashboard. Open the template called Electrical Circuit Diagram. While you'll start with a blank page, you'll notice a wide range of electrical symbols docked in the SmartPanel to the left of your drawing area. These capacitors, inductors, switches, resisters, and more will make building your circuit diagram easier.

Add a Power Source

You'll want to start your circuit diagram by adding the power source for your circuit. For example, drag and drop the symbol for a battery from one of the libraries docked to the left of your drawing area.

If you don't recognize electrical symbols by sight, you can hover over them to see their name. If you're a beginner, it may help to always see the name of a symbol displayed. You can change this using a single setting. Click on More above your docked libraries to bring up the Symbol Libraries modal and click on Horizontal Symbol Labels to toggle the labels to be always visible.

You can turn this back off once you're more comfortable recognizing the symbols you need.

Draw Circuit Lines

Circuits are drawn as simple lines.

You can draw a line by clicking on the Line tool at the top of the SmartPanel. By default, you'll draw a segmented line with an arrow at one end. SmartDraw calls these types of line "Shape Connectors" because they have special properties that let you drag and drop shapes to them more easily.

Adding Symbols at the End of the Line

You can draw a line automatically connected to an existing component in your drawing. Just click on the yellow circle (or action button) at the end of the shape and drag your cursor to draw a line. You'll see a pop-up menu of symbol options you can add to the end of your line. You can quickly add components like this and build your schematic. The pop-up menu is populated with your most recently used symbols so it will change over time as you build your diagram.

Add or Remove Arrows

If you right click on your circuit line, you can add or remove arrowheads if you need.

Adjust Line Hops

Line hops allow lines to cross in your diagram and indicate that lines that are not connected. The right-click menu allows you to adjust the type and size of line hops when your lines cross.

Add Components

To add more symbols, you can drag and drop any symbol from a docked library onto the line and it will automatically snap into place. You'll know that a symbol is ready to attach to a line when your cursor changes to the anchor symbol.

You don't have to worry about making sure the symbol connects correctly. SmartDraw's intelligent line system makes sure your symbol looks perfect without adjustment.

Moving Symbols

You can move any symbol attached to a line along the line like a bead on a string. Just select your component and drag to move. Your lines will stay attached to your symbol as you reposition it.

You can detach and move a symbol to a different line if you hold down the Alt key before moving the symbol. While holding the Alt key, move your symbol away from the line and your circuit will heal automatically.

Find More Symbols

Each template comes with a few relevant symbol libraries already docked. You can scroll through through them or use the carats (small black arrows to the left of the name) to expand and collapse any library.

You can also drag libraries up and down the stack to reorder them.

If you need more symbols, just type a keyword into the search bar above the docked libraries and hit Enter.

Search results will be displayed below organized into the libraries the symbols were found in. You can simply drag and drop any symbol from the search results to your page.

If you find a library or symbol sets you want to add to your template for later use, click on the golden plus icon and choose either Add result or Add library.

SmartDraw has a complete collection of industry-standard IEEE and NECA symbols. You can find them by searching as described above or by browsing for them using the More option above the docked libraries. Clicking More opens the Symbol Libraries modal where you can browse all the symbols available in SmartDraw. The IEEE and NECA symbols have their own subcategories located under Engineering.

Line Settings

The line settings will help you draw your circuits. You can view and change line setting under the Options group in the SmartPanel. If the Allow Lines to Link option is selected in the SmartPanel, the lines will neatly snap to each other and can move as a unit while still remaining separate. This setting also allows lines to connect to shapes. If the Allow Lines to Join option is selected, these connected lines will become one continuous line.

Add an Annotation Layer

You can add an annotation layer to all electrical and engineering documents to help you display document level information.

This annotation layer will automatically adjust its size and position as the drawing area (or paper size) changes. You can add the scale, author and other information about the design in this layer just like the "page view" in a traditional CAD program.

To add an Annotation Layer, click Add Annotation Layer under the Document Setup section in your SmartPanel.