Hi there,

I followed some discussions here and read some reviews on the internet, and seems to me that Eagle is a good software at a reasonable price. My question is that: is a schematic drawn using Eagle readable by other schematic capture tools such as OrCAD or PCAD? I know that the layout Gerber file is a standard format but I don't know if the schematic file is universal or not.

Thank you for your help.


Annie

I think that CAD programs tend use their own formats for schematics.

Some CAD programs can read the files from other CAD programs by using special utilities.

I don't know how common this is.

That's true. My experience is that you have to verify every single import/export combination, with the specific versions that you're using.

And things are not even consistent within a make. I had to look at some OrCAD schematics recently and downloaded OrCAD's own free viewer -- and it didn't work right. Every page after the first page had the text layer distorted relative to the graphics.

I also tried importing OrCAD into Protel, which is supposedly supported, but works only 90%. Now whether the 10% that don't work are relevant to you or not, you probably won't know for real until they are... :)

BTW, the same goes for layouts. There is more to a layout than the Gerber output provides (all the component and net data, for example). Basically, The Gerber files are "dumb" and don't know the difference between a trace and a pad, whereas the layout files have all the different objects that you handle. You usually don't create your layout as a Gerber file, but rather create the Gerbers as your final result from the layout. The Gerber files are standard, but the layout files themselves are not, and you face the same conversion challenge -- only probably worse.

Thank you for your comments.