Joerg said:
Arie's hint is great. But it'll be lots of typing. If it isn't for doc
purposes but just for mutual understanding there is an easier way. This
Saturday me and my layouter (with him being in Vermont) just could not
get onto the same page with a weird kind of laser diode mounting
(z-bend, then rotate a bit and lay flat over some discretes).
So I sketched it up, scanned that in and zipped it over. Tada! Problem
solved, layout is now done. But the fab people haven't come back with a
quote for hours now. Hope that doesn't spell trouble.
There's a lot to be said for sketching things freehand. Particularly if
one is a visual/spatial thinker, it helps with the conceptualization
process.
Some years ago, I was responsible for maintaining a rather complex
engineering document management an configuration control system (built
in house). All of the diagrams in my documentation were done by hand on
quad ruled paper. From time to time, management required that an
'official' version be done by the CAD group, but I came to find out that
the IT folks had taken to distributing copies of my drawings to the
various support groups and shelving the CAD versions.
One (new) manager had requested that the CAD group produce an overview
data flow diagram by combining all the individual diagram pages into a
single sheet. It was about 36x48 inches with small (10pt) font labels
and symbols. The story was that as soon as he saw the system he was to
take responsibility for on one page, he quit.
My drawings were 8.5 x 11 sheets with each sheet being the data flow or
E-R for a single event (weekly backup, new version checkout, etc.)
making the system a lot easier to comprehend.