How to use Circuit Notebook

1. Getting started

Open the app and create a project, or open the buck converter example to look around. You do not need an account: without one, projects are saved in your browser only (keep a copy with Export → Download .olg file). With an account, your projects can live on the server, and you can share them.

The editor has four areas:

• Top bar: project name, where you are in the hierarchy, undo / redo, theme, Present and Export.
• Tool rail (far left): select, pan, wire, block, text, pencil, shapes…
• Left panel: the library of parts, your templates, comments and the sheets.
• Right panel: the properties of what is selected.

Move around with the mouse wheel (zoom) and by dragging with the middle button or with Space held down. F fits the drawing to the screen. Both side panels can be resized by their edge, or hidden.

2. Drawing a schematic

Search the library (mosfet, transformer, pi…) or press A for the quick add box. Click a part, then click on the page to place it; it stays in your hand to place more, Esc stops.

• R rotates, Shift R the other way, X / Y mirror.
• The right panel sets the reference (R1…), the value, and the options of the part: channel and body diode of a MOSFET, polarity dots and secondaries of a transformer, position of a switch (at rest or actuated), size…
• EU / US in the top bar switches every symbol between IEC and US drawings.
• A transformer can also be drawn winding by winding (Transformer winding): put the primary and the secondaries where they belong, and give them the same reference.
• Your own parts: New symbol in the library opens the symbol editor. Save a selection as a template to reuse it in other projects.

3. Wires and connections

• Drag from a pin, or press W: click to add corners, click a pin or a wire to finish (or double-click). / flips the bend while drawing. Shift W draws a signal line with an arrow.
• A junction dot appears by itself where three or more connections meet. Wires that simply cross are not connected.
• Moving: drag a part or a wire, and what is attached follows. A wire end on a part that stays keeps hold of its pin (the wire stretches, with square corners); a wire end teeing into another wire slides along it, and its junction dot goes with it; wires ending where the moved one ends stretch to follow; net labels stay on their wire.
• One piece: click a selected wire again to pick the piece under the pointer (a segment, cut at the junctions on it). Drag it, or press Delete to remove only that piece; the junctions stay where they are.
• Net labels (L): two labels with the same name are connected, even without a wire between them.

4. Sheets and blocks

A block (B) is a whole sheet shown as a box: the controller of a converter, a gate driver… Double-click it (or Enter) to open its sheet; U or Esc goes back up. Inside, sheet ports (P) become the pins of the block. Ctrl Shift B moves a selection into a new block. The breadcrumbs at the top show where you are, and the Sheets tab lists them all.

5. Text and LaTeX

Anything between dollars is LaTeX: $\Delta i_L = \frac{V}{L}\,t$. It works in texts (T), labels, notes, shapes, arrows, values and port names. Double-click something (or F2) to edit its text in place.

The math bar above the text helps: $…$ (or Ctrl M) puts dollars around the selection or the line, and the buttons insert a fraction, an index, an exponent, a root, Greek letters and symbols (⋯ for more). Pressing the index button right after V gives $V_{n}$, ready to type over.

6. Whiteboard tools

• Pencil (D) and eraser (E): freehand notes, with pen pressure.
• Shapes (S), including flowchart shapes; hand-drawn look as an option.
• Lines and arrows (Shift L): started or ended on a shape, they stay attached to it; drag their middle to bend them.
• Sticky notes (N), images (I, or paste / drop a file), link buttons (K).
• Frames (Shift F): group a region; they are the slides of the presentation.
• Comments (C): pin a discussion anywhere on the page.

7. Waveforms

The waveform tool (O) draws oscillograms and chronograms: sine, square, PWM, triangle, ripple, first and second order steps, or your own points. Each trace has its amplitude, offset, periods, phase, duty cycle, colour and label (LaTeX). Stacked puts one trace per band, like a chronogram; overlay puts them on one axis.

8. Arrange and style

• Group (Ctrl G), align and distribute several things from the right panel.
• Order: to the front, one step forward (Ctrl ]), one step backward (Ctrl [), to the back (a background). One step goes past the next thing it overlaps.
• Colour, stroke, dash and fill in Style; lock an element so it does not move.
• Show in: leave something out of the presentation or of the exports (draft notes, hints).

9. Presenting

Present (F5) shows your frames as slides, in reading order, sheet by sheet; a sheet without frames is one slide. Click, → or Space goes on; click a block to dive into its sheet, Backspace comes back up.

• L laser pointer, P pen (nothing is saved), C clears the pen.
• B blanks the screen; the button turns red while it is blank.
• Links open in a new tab, and the presentation goes on.
• With an account, others can follow your presentation live.

Select a frame to set its place: Slide 2 of 5 with ‹ › to show it earlier or later (the numbers appear next to the frames while one is selected; ↺ goes back to reading order). Choose its transition there too: the camera glides (default), fade, slide in, slide up, zoom through, blur or cut, fast, normal or slow.

10. Animations

Select something inside a frame and open Animation at the bottom of the right panel, then Add:

Each animation plays as the slide opens or on click 1, 2, 3…, with a duration and a delay (several on the same click start together; use the delay to play them one after the other). A click in the presentation plays the next step before going to the next slide; going back undoes the last step. While the Animation section is open, small numbers on the page show on which click things happen, and a selected frame lists its build order. Preview presents that slide right away.

The example is an animated presentation: open it and press Present to see.

11. Export

Export (Ctrl E) gives a PDF (one page per sheet, the blocks and links are clickable), PNG or SVG images, CircuiTikZ code for LaTeX, or the project file (.olg) to keep or send. Tick Only the selection to export just what is selected. Shift C copies the selection as an image, to paste in a report.

12. Working together

With an account, Share invites people or a whole team, as editors, commenters or viewers. Rights can be set per sheet, and a sheet can be hidden from some people. Everyone's cursor and selection show live; comments can be answered, resolved and reopened; History brings back an earlier version of the project.

13. On a phone

On a phone the drawing takes the whole screen. The bar at the bottom opens the tools, the parts, the sheets, the comments and the settings. One finger moves the view (or a part), two fingers zoom. Tap a part to get its actions: rotate, mirror, copy, edit, delete.

14. Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? in the app for the full list; you can change any of them there. The most useful:

15. The beta

Circuit Notebook is in open beta, free while it grows. Each account keeps a few projects on the server; projects in your browser are unlimited. Things change often: see what's new in each version. Found a bug, or missing a symbol? Tell me through the contact form.