Visio Shapes and Engineering Template for Electrical Circuits
Posted under: OVERVIEW
If you have ever used the the Electrical Engineer Library included with Visio, you will quickly learn just how crappy it is. Symbols do not align to the grid, they contain long connectors, and the shapes are just plain unprofessional. I believe the example image shown in Fig. 1 clearly explains my point. The circuit library I have been slowly building as a result could be useful to ECE students and practicing engineers. If you are a student and your department is part of the Microsoft Development Network (MSDN), which most are, you can get Visio for free.
Fig.1 Why Visio Library Sucks
The advantages of the PitelSPOT Electrical Shape Library and the PitelSPOT Engineering Template are:
- Symbols align to a 0.1″ grid. This grid work great for those small double column articles required in IEEE journals and conference papers.
- The Engineering Template will setup the grids and snaps for you. To use, go to File=> New=> New Drawing from Template=> then select PitelSPOTEngineeringTemplate.vst.
- Symbols are minimal. Use the connector tool to join shapes.
The presently supported shapes are shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. List of Included Electrical Symbols
VERSION HISTORY
- 06-17-09: FREE DOWNLOAD: PitelSPOT Engineering Template for Visio Version 1.0
- 02-08-11: FREE DOWNLOAD: PitelSPOT Electrical Shapes for Visio Version 1.1
- You will need to load the Shapes before you can see them in the sidebar and drag-and-drop them into your drawing. There are probably a dozen ways to load them in, the picture below shows shapes loading from in the sidebar. Click Open Stencil and choose PitelSPOTElectricalSymbols.vss.
- Shapes now show in the side bar. Select and drag them into your drawing.
Hello! Thanks for the awesome template and stencils. However, I am looking for a stencil set that contains dependent sources. Can you point me in the correct direction, please! Thanks, again.
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Grant Pitel Reply:
February 8th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Added requested symbol.
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Never mind. I am retarded. :}
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Hello,
I have the Visio 2007 Standard edition. I downloaded the files pitelspotengineeringtemplate.vsd and pitelspotelectricalsymbols.vsd but I only see a blank sheet when I open them. Any idea what’s going on? or how I can get the electrical symbols.
Thank you
NHoyek
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my version of visio is 2003,and i only see the blank page.please give me guide.
thank you
ashkan horri
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Grant Pitel Reply:
February 9th, 2011 at 12:06 am
Guide added
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try to save it as .vss file and click Open Stensil in Visio. It should work.
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Is there a dependent current source? I only see a dependent voltage source.
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Grant Pitel Reply:
February 8th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
There was not one when you ask, but if you look now you should see one. Enjoy
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It looks like the update a few days ago broke the link to the VSS file…?!
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Grant Pitel Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
Found the file in my trash directory :/ Thanks for letting me know.
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Just wanted to let you know that the link is broken to the shapes file.
Thanks,
mh
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Grant Pitel Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 8:37 pm
File is back. Thanks!
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mh Reply:
February 15th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Awesome, thank you kind sir! You are a stallion amoungst men.
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Grant!! Hey!! So this is great – I needed to make a dependent voltage source in Visio and I googled it and this was the first thing that came up!! What are the odds!
Anyway, I hope you’re doing well =-)
Kate
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Grant Pitel Reply:
February 17th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Hey Kate, yeah these Visio shapes contribute to 50% of my traffic right now. I recently heard that you passed your prelim, congrats.
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The files I’m downloading have a .vsd extension (not .vst). How do I handle importing them into visio standard 2007; in a windows xp environment?
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hi trying to find a way of producing site built schematics for solar photovoltaic systems but struggling any ideas
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Thanks very much, Grant! They make for great “pretty pictures.”
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Hi!
Any chance you could also add the symbols for NMOS and PMOS?
Thanks!
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Great googgelimoggely, thanx
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thanks man!
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Grant Pitel Reply:
October 9th, 2011 at 10:09 am
Go Illini !
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Hi, thanks a mill for that. Working great in Office 2007.
Allow me to have one request thou
Could you add a multiplexer symbol for the next rev ?
Thanks a mill again
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These are way better, thanks for creating them for Visio! I noticed that I can’t add a label to these, would that be possible to do? Also, are the lines in each symbol grouped? I think I accidentally messed a current source up when I was dragging.
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Hi, Thank you very much for your useful stencil.
Kamrani
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AD Reply:
December 7th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
great stencil ! working on 2003 no issue!
Thanks
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Great stencils, makes drawing circuit diagrams a lot easier.
Thanks for sharing this with us!
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