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I have read through many electronics documentation over the years and I have really wanted to draw the timing diagrams for digital signals using some software.

I have seen https://wavedrom.com/tutorial.html and their diagrams seem very detailed and well suited for higher-level technical documentation.

However, say you are writing documentation for beginners, you would prefer diagrams like this diagram explaining Serial Communication or this diagram explaining SPI communication drawn by user Nick Gammon in his answers here and here, which seem to be far more simple with text annotations and other helpful stuff like marking our regions of interest, etc.

The diagrams drawn by Nick would be great for documentation when you are just starting out on some digital electronics subject. Seems to me he is using some kind of software with a template of some sort to make his diagrams so uniform every time.

I even tried to contact Nick Gammon over stackexchange through comment or private messages but my reputation is too for that it seems.

So, can someone tell me how to draw these simple timing diagrams?

Ativerc
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2 Answers2

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I just use Microsoft Visio. I've been using that product for years, before it was acquired by Microsoft. I have created some symbols that I keep in my stencil file for objects(?) that I use a lot.

Here's an example

SteveSh
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  • This looks cool. Is this timing diagram completely drawn from inbuilt library of visio? – Mitu Raj Dec 03 '19 at 15:28
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    Well, it's really just Visio line segments and text boxes. Once you create the basic waveform types you want to use, it's easy to add them to a stencil or just keep copying them from one drawing to the next. – SteveSh Dec 03 '19 at 16:08
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    Note to others: you need to use the "Desktop" version of Visio, not the web-based Office 365 one. You can't even connect line segments with the web-based version. – wisbucky Mar 16 '22 at 21:39
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I have frequently used TimingDesigner by EMA to do just this and haven't found a freeware or common software tool that comes anywhere close. It's definitely a worth while effort to document and check FPGA <-> IC timings against datasheet & verify FPGA constraints for said interfaces. My new job doesn't have a license and I miss it greatly. I imagine using Visio would be as easy as chiseling your timing diagram onto a stone tablet.

Andrew D
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