Getting started
Creating a new drawing
To create a new Electra drawing:
- Click on Create | New drawing.
OR
- Hover to any template and click new.
See also
Opening a drawing
To open a drawing:
- Hover to any drawings on your dashboard and click open.
Automatic saving
Electra drawings are automatically synchronized and saved on the cloud, as indicated at the bottom of the screen, and there is no necessity to manually save a drawing.
Page scale
Each drawing can have multiple pages, and each page can have it's own scale.
By default, a page is set to 1:1 scale, which is optimized for schematic drawings and produces a beautiful printed copy. For panel layout drawings, you may need to modify scaling to see more on a page, therefore we recommend 1:5 scale for medium sized panels, and 1:10 scale for bigger panels.
To set page scaling:
- Click on the Scale input and enter a source unit
- Then click on the Scale target input and enter a target unit.
See also
Page measurement units
Each and every page on a drawing can have its own measurement units in inches, centimeters, millimeters and pixels, where the ruler and grid will automatically change to reflect the selected units.
By default, page measurement units are set to pixels, which is great for schematic drawings. During panel layout, it is recommended to set page measurement units to millimeters (mm).
To select a measurement unit:
- Click on the ruler, then select pixel, inches, millimeters or centimeters.
See also
Stencils and drawing area
The editor is divided into drawing areas on the right and stencils on the left, where stencils are a collection of symbols which you can drag and drop onto your drawing.
See also
Opening and using stencil
To open and use a stencil:
- Click on the stencil menu, and select a stencil.
Once a stencil is opened, simply drag and drop symbols onto drawing.
See also
Connection points
Most shapes in Electra have connection points allowing one shape to connect to another (e.g., connecting a wire to a symbol). Although they are visible in the drawing when you attempt to connect one shape to another, they will not be visible on printed hard copies.
See also
Positioning text
Symbols and wires in Electra have yellow control handles that allows you to reposition text easily.
To reposition text:
- Drag on the yellow control handles to move the texts to a new position.
See also
Selecting sub shapes in a group
Individual shapes in a group, known as sub shapes, can be individually selected and formatted. Applying specific styling and formatting (e.g., font, alignment) to the group affects all shapes in the group, whereas applying specific styling and formatting to a sub shape only affects the individual sub shape.
To select a sub shape in a group:
- Click on a group, then click on the sub shape (not double click).
See also
Version control
By default version control is enabled and will start versioning your drawing as you draw. Changing your drawing back and forth with ease.
See also
