Working with the schematic editor in Conductr
Schematics always open in read-only view mode, even if you're the one who created them — this keeps you from accidentally moving or changing something while just looking at a drawing. Click the Edit button in the top toolbar to switch into edit mode and unlock the drawing tools.
While in edit mode, the canvas becomes fully interactive: you can place symbols, draw wires, and modify anything on the sheet. Switching back out of edit mode (or navigating away) will prompt you to save if you have unsaved changes.
Symbols are placed onto a schematic from the Symbol Library rather than drawn from scratch each time. Open the library, find the component you need (search by name, category, or part number), and place it onto the canvas.
Because placed symbols reference the library entry they came from, updating the library symbol later — and refreshing the schematic — carries those changes through to every drawing that uses it, instead of having to fix each instance one at a time.
Wires in Conductr represent physical wires, not just visual connector lines. Each wire carries real attributes — wire number, net/signal name, gauge (AWG), color, and part number.
The On Canvas sidebar lists every object currently placed on the active sheet — symbols, wires, and other drawing elements — as a live outline of the drawing. It's a quick way to find and select an object without hunting for it visually, especially on a dense schematic, and it stays in sync as you add, rename, or remove objects on the canvas.
Document Properties holds the metadata for the schematic itself: title, company, project, drawing number, revision, and status (Draft, Released, or Obsolete), along with the fields used to fill in a title block (drawn by, checked by, approved by, date, scale, sheet, and so on).
This is also where you control whether the schematic retrieves its title/info automatically from SavantPLM by part number, instead of typing it in by hand.
Schematic Settings controls the drawing's grid size and units (mil, mm, or inch) — the working scale you draw and snap against. This is separate from Document Properties; it affects how the drawing behaves on screen, not the drawing's metadata.
Border Options controls whether the printable sheet border is shown, the paper size (Letter through ANSI-E, or A1–A4), and orientation (landscape/portrait). It's also where you adjust the drawing's layout scale (pixels per inch), which affects how the schematic is sized relative to the printed sheet.
A title block is the bordered info box (typically bottom-right of a sheet) showing the drawing's title, company, drawing number, revision, and similar fields. Conductr maintains a reusable Title Block Library — pick a title block layout from that library and place it on the schematic, and it auto-fills from the schematic's Document Properties rather than needing its fields typed in separately.
Generate Netlist builds a wire-by-wire connection table (a "wire schedule") from
the current schematic — for each wire, it lists every terminal it touches, formatted as
RefDes.PinName (for example, J1.1 to J2.A1). This gives you
a complete list of every electrical connection on the sheet in one place, which can be copied or
exported.
Every schematic has its own Access & Collaborators settings, controlling who in your workspace can see or edit it:
The Nailboard menu in the top toolbar lists any nailboards already created for the current schematic, lets you open one, and lets you create a new one. A nailboard is a separate wire-harness layout tied to the schematic — see the Conductr Overview for more on what nailboards are used for.
If you have questions or need assistance, please visit our Contact page to get in touch with our support team.
For more detailed documentation on specific topics, see the Conductr Help index.