While a set of pins is technically all that's required to pair a symbol to your physical package, schematics have a very rich visual language around them that engineers across the globe know and expect to see.

Every engineers knows the difference between a resistor and a capacitor on a schematic because there are a few agreed upon 'symbols' for these parts.
It's important to respect the expectation of other engineers and end users when making new schematic symbols. For common parts, try to follow existing conventions, and do a quick search online before making your own symbols.

Creating a Symbol Outline/Shape

We can use the 'Wire' tool (which functions like the 'Line' tool that we used in the package editor) to draw a visual symbol for our part in the symbol editor.

The GA1A1S202WP is an extremely basic IC, and doesn't really match an standard four pin symbol, so we can simply draw a box with the four pins sticking out of it for our schematic symbol, similar to the following:
By default the 'Wire' tool will place the lines on layer 94 (Symbols), which is generally the layer you should use for this information.

This guide was first published on Apr 22, 2013. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Drawing a Symbol Outline) was last updated on Apr 22, 2013.

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