Guide / Basics

Getting started

Sign in, create a project, upload your schematic PDFs and find your way around.

On this pageTry the live demo firstSign inCreate a project and upload schematicsMove around the schematicThe toolbar and panels

Try the live demo first

The demo is the real editor with a sample board (CKD-100), its BOM and a team's notes, equations and traces. No account needed.

  1. On cirkit.us, click Try the live demo.
  2. Follow the tour: each step points at a feature and asks you to try it. Press Next when it says you've done it, or Skip.
  3. Leave the tour any time to explore freely; Restart tour in the demo banner brings it back.
Tip
  • Nothing you change in the demo is saved: it resets when you reload.

Sign in

  1. Click Open Cirkit on the home page.
  2. Sign up with your email (you'll get a code to confirm it) or with Google.
  3. You land on the Projects page, in your Personal workspace.

Create a project and upload schematics

A project holds one board or product: its schematic PDFs, BOMs and everything the team adds to them.

  1. On the Projects page, click New project, give it a name (and a description if you like), and create it.
  2. Open the project, then click the schematic menu at the top left (it says No schematics) and choose Upload PDF…. You can pick several PDFs at once, up to 50 MB each.
  3. To switch between schematics later, open the same menu. With many schematics, type in its search box to find one by name, and press Enter to open it.
Tips
  • Use the PDFs your EDA tool exports (Altium, KiCad, OrCAD…): they contain real text, which Cirkit uses to find parts, nets and designators. Scanned drawings work too, with fewer automatic features.
  • Everything you add is saved automatically a moment after each change; the project name at the top left shows Saving… and then Saved.

Move around the schematic

  1. Zoom with a trackpad pinch, or Ctrl (⌘ on Mac) + scroll: it zooms around the cursor. The + and − buttons at the bottom left zoom too, and FIT fits the page to the window.
  2. Scroll to pan; Shift + scroll pans sideways.
  3. Change pages with the arrows in the page bar at the bottom.
  4. Search the schematic's text with Ctrl/⌘ + F (or the Search button): matches are highlighted, and Enter steps through them.

The toolbar and panels

  1. The tools in the middle of the toolbar: Select (highlight text, click annotations), Annotate (a menu of the annotating tools) and Ask AI.
  2. The panels on the right: Traces, Proposals, Calc, Issues and AI. One opens at a time, next to the annotation panel.
  3. The panel button (beside the eye) shows or hides the annotation panel; the eye shows or hides annotations on the schematic.
  4. The ⋯ menu has the theme, JSON import and export, this guide, and Help & feedback.

Something unclear or missing? Tell us.