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Concepts

Relationship between symbols and components
Drawings and the component database

Getting started

Creating a new drawing
Opening a drawing
Automatic saving
Page scale
Page measurement units
Stencils and drawing area
Opening and using stencil
Connection points
Positioning text
Selecting sub shapes in a group
Version control

Using the dashboard

Personalized dashboard
Customizing your dashboard view
Expanding and collapsing sections
Using folders
Creating folders
Refreshing folders
Renaming folders
Moving folders
Trashing, restoring and permanently deleting folders
Finding drawings and folders
How to find a drawing's location
Export drawing in the dashboard
Import PDF to the dashboard

Create and manage drawings

Selecting multiple drawings
Creating a new drawing
Renaming a drawing
Moving a drawing
Trashing, restoring and permanently deleting drawings
Understanding trash permissions
Duplicating a drawing
Pinning a drawing to the top
Saving and opening an offline drawing

Create and manage teams

Understanding team permissions
Understanding inheritance
Sharing a team drawing
Creating a team
Inviting team members
Managing team permissions
Renaming a team
Leaving or deleting a team

Sharing and collaborating

Sharing a drawing
Sharing with email (requires signup)
Sharing with a public link (no signup required)
Managing access and invites
Sharing to social media
Publishing a drawing
Real time collaboration
Viewing who is online
Chatting with team mates
Viewing notifications
Integrating with Slack
Creating a team from your Slack channel
Sharing a drawing to Slack

Electra options

Accessing Electra options
Automatic in/mm/cm/meters resize
Automatic wire propagation and detection
Split wires when dropping terminals
Automatic adjust and straighten wire
Automatically manage connection dots for wires
How page prefix works
Enable page prefix on references
Enable page prefix on wires
Page prefix separator for wires
Automatic wiring when dropping symbol
Automatically Place Layout Symbols on Rails
Initial Placement Offset
Location zone options
Location format

Creating your own title blocks

The anatomy of a title block
Title block creation process
Inserting title block zones
Inserting static text and graphics
Inserting automatic text
Creating and inserting user data
The create title block window
Using a custom title block
Editing the title block icon
Fit the title block to page margin

Symbols and components

One intelligent symbol
Placing and duplicating symbols
Intelligent inheritance
Intelligent automatic numbering
Editing symbol reference
The reference window
Displaying pin names
Automatic pin names
Modifying pin sets
Understanding symbols and components
Assigning components
Managing components
Selecting a component
The component database
The autolocation shape

Creating your own symbol

Symbol creation process
The anatomy of a schematic symbol
The create symbol window
Editing the symbol icon
Modifying existing symbols

Wires

A variety of wires
Difference between a line and a wire
Connecting and manipulating wires
Editing wire name
The wire window
Customizing wires
Automatic wire name detection
Wire name propagation
Automatic wire connection
Wire links
Wire buses
Assigning Cables
Managing Cables
Selecting A Cable
Arranging Cable Cores
The Cable Database
The Cable Tag Symbol

Re-using circuits

Intelligent copy and paste
Prefab circuits
Creating prefab circuits
Using and sharing prefab circuits

Intelligent terminals

Terminal status detection
Automatic wire splitting
Using and generating terminals
Manually assigning terminal numbers
Jumping to linked terminals
Using terminal blocks
Organizing multitier terminals

PLC shapes

The PLC symbol
Customizing the PLC symbol
Creating a single PLC using multiple symbols
The connector symbol
Customizing the connector symbol

The ladder zone shape

The ladder zone symbol
Using ladder zone

Panel layout

The panel layout process
Preparing a page for panel layout
Inserting plates, cable ducts and rails
Dimension shapes
Generating panel layout
Using guides to place layout shapes
Using Automatic Placement on Rails
Disabling Automatic Placement
Using 3D layout shapes
Making your own layout shapes

Generating and exporting reports

Generating reports
Cross reference report
Material reference report
Importing material reference
Bill of materials report
Cable reference report
Connections (From/To) report
Cable bill of materials report
Exporting reports
Exporting component database
Importing component database
Exporting cable database
Importing cable database
Exporting symbols on drawing
Importing symbols on drawing
Export wires on drawing
Import wires on drawing
Generating Table of Contents

Importing and Exporting in Electra Cloud

Overview
Importing DXF and DWG files
Exporting as DXF/DWG
Exporting component database
Importing component database
Exporting cable database
Importing cable database
Exporting symbols on drawing
Importing symbols on drawing
Export wires on drawing
Import wires on drawing

Purchasing and licensing

Overview
Find the perfect plan for your project
Payment method
Assigning licenses
Payment history
Change payment methods
Retry charge
Electra E9 license activation
Cancel subscription

FAQ

If I share and move a drawing to a folder, will it affect other users?
What happens if a user trashed the drawing I shared to them?
Can a user create a new drawing from shared drawing?
How to check if the drawing belongs to personal or team in the editor?
Can Electra generate a From/To report?
I already have CAD symbols in AutoCad, can I import them into Electra?
How to import drawing from Electra Cloud to Electra E9 and vice versa
How to use an existing drawing as a template in Electra E9?

Preferences and settings

Setting the language
Setting the keyboard increment
Automatically resize symbols to snap on grid
Play sound when chat message is received
Play sound when collaborator joins editing
Notification settings
Enable or disable desktop notifications
DWG/DXF settings
Enable or disable Import dimensions and Import layers

Basic shape operations

Selecting a drawing tool
Selecting shapes and sub shapes
Drawing squares, rectangles and rounded rectangles
Drawing lines, arcs, curves and freeforms (paths)
Modifying paths
Moving path points
Extending or joining paths
Adding path points
Deleting path points
Rotating shapes
Resizing shapes
Maintaining aspect ratio
Resizing shapes from the center
Resizing with proportional stroke or line weight
Setting stroke widths or line weight
Setting text stroke width
Setting line style
Understanding line style format
Setting line end (arrow)
Setting line end (arrow) sizing
Modifying stroke linecap
Setting stroke linejoin
Using connectors
Using elbow connectors
Using straight connectors
Using jump connectors
Resizing connectors
Using connection points
Adding connection points
Deleting connection points
Moving connection points
Connecting shapes using connection points
Locking shapes
Adding hyperlinks

Advanced shape operations

Grouping shapes
Ungrouping shapes
Grouped shapes with text
Flip vertical
Flip horizontal
Fragment shapes
Union shapes
Difference shapes
Intersect shapes
Flatten shapes
How flattening works
Trimming shapes
Joining paths
Outline text
Converting shapes to path
Why convert to path?

Using stencils and symbols

Opening and using a stencil
Creating a new stencil
Collapse all stencils
Icon Size
Understanding stencil permissions
Editing stencil properties
Closing a stencil
Deleting a stencil
Arrange stencils
Moving stencils
Sharing stencils
Using symbols
Creating a new symbol
Editing a symbol
Copying a symbol
Pasting a symbol
Pasting a symbol's name, description and tags
Editing a symbol icon
Refreshing a symbol
Deleting a symbol
Collapsing a stencil
Arranging symbols in a stencil
Finding symbols
Downloading a stencil
Importing a stencil

Modifying fonts and text

Setting font family
Adding your own web fonts
Adding your own custom fonts
Setting font sizes
Setting text alignment
Positioning text
Modifying text padding
Creating text
Outlining text
Find and replace text

Using flow text

Overview
Create flow text
Offset flow text
Revert flow text

Arranging and aligning shapes

Arranging shapes using back, backward, front and forward
Aligning shapes
Creating guides
Deleting guides
Attaching shapes to guides
Moving guides
Hiding and showing guides
Clearing (deleting) all guides

Using the color picker

Single click to set most recent color
Setting text stroke color
Using default colors
Setting colors quickly
Customizing colors
Customizing gradients
Add more stops to a gradient
Remove a stop from gradient
Saving customized gradients
Resetting saved gradients
Using colors and gradients across multiple devices

Using painter

How to use painter
How to use multi-mode
Using format painter
Using color painter
Using formula painter
Using json painter

Applying shadow, bevel and other effects

Overview
Applying effects
Drop shadow
Inner shadow
Bevel
Blur
Glow
Deleting an effect
Effect on text

Shape properties and formulas

Viewing Shape properties
Adding a field
Removing a field
Entering values
Entering units and expressions
Locking aspect ratio
Viewing and entering formulas
Deleting a formula
Editing formulas on the mini editor
Automatically minimizing Shape properties
Viewing text properties
Editing text line spacing
Assigning name to shapes
Automatically incrementing shapes
Resizing line end (arrow)
Repeat Transformation

Page size, scaling and units

Displaying the page setup dialog
Selecting a page sizing
Setting a custom page size
Selecting page orientation
Fitting a page to a drawing
Selecting a measurement unit
Page scaling
Page margin

Multiple pages

Adding a new page
Renaming a page
Selecting a page
Page reordering
Deleting a page

Using templates

Creating a template
Creating a new drawing from a template
Editing a template
Using Electra template
Browsing Electra templates

Exporting shapes and drawings

Exporting shapes
Exporting the entire drawing
Exporting as JPG
Exporting as PNG
Exporting as PDF
Exporting as DXF/DWG
Exporting as SVG

Importing files

Importing images into Electra (PNG, GIF, JPG, SVG, AI)
Auto-resizing and clipping of imported image
Importing Visio documents into Electra
Importing AutoCAD (DWG/DXF) into Electra
Importing Adobe Illustrator (.ai) files into Electra

Creating and using layers

Displaying the layers dialog
The default layer
Creating new layers
Creating non printable, hidden or comment layers
Renaming layers
Selecting an active layer
Assigning shapes to layers
Inheriting layers
Deleting layers
Selecting all shapes in a layer
Showing or hiding shapes in a layer
Changing the z-order of layers
Add custom data

Using version control

Overview
Save a version
Reverting drawing version

Add custom data

What is custom data?
Add custom data
Use custom data

Add custom menu

Overview
Viewing custom menu
Understanding custom menu
Selecting a custom menu
Rearrange custom menu
Example of custom menu

Using dark mode

Viewing dark theme and light theme

Using Clip Path

Overview
Create clip path
Text clipper
Remove clip path

Plugins

What are plugins?
Personal plugins
Team plugins
Public plugins
Accessing and using plugins
Running a plugin
Automatically running plugins when drawing loads
Stopping an automatically run plugin
Organizing and closing plugins
Creating a plugin
Editing the plugin script
Renaming and editing a plugin
Editing plugin icons
Refreshing a plugin
Sharing a plugin to other teams

Keyboard shortcuts

List of keyboard shortcuts

Import drawings or stencils from Electra E6/E7/E8

Overview
Steps to import drawings from Electra E6/E7/E8 to Electra Cloud/Electra E9
Steps to import stencils from Electra E6/E7/E8 to Electra Cloud/Electra E9

Tools

Renumber
Renumber ladder zones

Google Drive Integration

Overview
Create Google Files from Vecta dashboard
Google Files Functions
Google Files Ownership
Deleting Google Files

Keyboard shortcuts

List of keyboard shortcuts

Next Step: Import drawings or stencils from Electra E6/E7/E8

Steps to import drawings from Electra E6/E7/E8 to Electra Cloud/Electra E9
Steps to import stencils from Electra E6/E7/E8 to Electra Cloud/Electra E9

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