How to Convert DipTrace Schematics to GIF or JPG for Web Use?

[Carl Pugh]

Have made schematic using DipTrace.
DipTrace only saves schematics in ***.dch
Would like to use schematic on a web site.
Does anyone have a good method to convert a schematic from ***.dch to ***.gif or ***.jpg?

Have tried:
Printed schematic out.
Scanned schematic and saved as ***.gif.
Placed schematics in website using Microsoft Expression Web 4.
Results were not satisfactory.

Printed schematic out.
Scanned schematic and saved as ***.jpg
Placed schematics in website using Microsoft Expression Web 4.
Results were not satisfactory.

Printed schematic out.
Scanned schematic and saved as ***.jpg
Opened schematic in Microsoft Paint.
Edited schematic in Microsoft Paint.
Saved schematic as ***.gif.
Placed schematics in website using Microsoft Expression Web 4.
Results were not satisfactory.

Printed schematic out.
Scanned schematic and saved as ***jpg
Opened schematic in Microsoft Paint.
Edited schematic in Microsoft Paint.
Saved schematic as ***.jpg.
Placed schematics in website using Microsoft Expression Web 4.
Results were not satisfactory.


Do you have a good program or method to make a schematic in .gif or .jpg?
Probably will only do this two or three times, so would like to keep software costs under $100.00.

Thanks for your suggestions.
Carl

 

[berkeman]

Worst case can you use Windows Alt-PrntScrn to get a screen capture and then paste that into a Word Doc?

EDIT/ADD -- If you then need to get from a DOCX file to a PDF file I use PrimoPDF's free program.

 

[gnurf]

If your schematic isn't too big and you're willing to redraw it, you might want to check out free online schematic drawing tools like SchemeIt or CircuitLab. They're easy to use and have various export formats.

 

[MATLABdude]

I'm unfamiliar with DipTrace--is there an option to plot the schematic to a vector format like .PS or .PDF?

If you have PostScript (.PS) output of the schematic, you can then convert it to a .PDF using Adobe Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader) or PDF Creator (the free and open-source alternative). Actually, on that note, if you can print from DipTrace, I'd download and install PDF Creator--it installs a PDF Printer that allows you to directly 'print' to a PDF file (which should be much higher quality). If you have the option to plot, I generally go for that over the PDF printing trick since you can usually get options like all-colors to black, thickened line widths, minimum text size, etc.
http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator

Since it looks like you want something on the web, you can open the .PDF file up in Acrobat Reader, and just select and copy the image with the box selection tool (zoom in so the image is roughly the size you want). You should be able to paste this image into MS Paint (change the canvas size to something small like 100 pix by 100 pix so it forces the canvas to expand to perfectly accommodate the image) and then paste. I used this trick a lot in my undergrad career to pull images from papers I referenced (along with appropriate attribution and citation, of course).

For full schematics, I'd recommend the free version of Eagle, or the free and open-source version of KiCad as good schematic capture and layout programs:
http://www.cadsoftusa.com/
http://www.kicad-pcb.org/display/KICAD/KiCad+EDA+Software+Suite

But if all you want is a simple schematic schematic (like a voltage divider or a simple amplifier or the likes), you could use SchemeIt (courtesy of DigiKey) or CircuitLab which both export to various graphics formats:
http://www.digikey.com/schemeit
https://www.circuitlab.com/

EDIT: Beaten to the chase by gnurf!

 

[davenn]

Hey Carl

I use MSpaintbrush for all my schematics and have done so for some 15 years ... it produces VERY sharp images both for www pages, printing and other general use
I initially draw it in xxx.bmp monochrome and usually save a copy that way
and for use on www site I convert it to xxx.gif to produce a file only a few kb in size but still top quality ( as good as the .bmp

see here ... http://www.sydneystormcity.com/harris23.htm for a complex layout example

or even this less complex example ...

Dave