Exporting the diagram

A finished single-line diagram — SLD — leaves the application by three routes. All three write the same sheet, frame and all; what differs is what the receiving end can do with it.

The two SLD buttons sit at the foot of the tools panel, which takes over the left column while the SLD tab is up. The Export ▾ menu sits beside Save project in every view. See Building the single-line diagram.

The diagram page in the report

The Detailed Project Report carries the diagram automatically. You do not export it separately: build the diagram, then choose Export ▾ ▸ Export Detailed Project Report, and the diagram is written in as the Single Line Diagram annexure — after the Site Layout Plan and the Design Summary, before the Bill of Materials. The document is A3 landscape throughout, so the diagram page and the layout drawing come out on the same paper. The full content order is on The Detailed Project Report.

While the pile overlay is on, Export ▾ ▸ Export PDF (with Piles) writes a PDF report whose third page is the same diagram sheet.

One behaviour to know about in the PDF with piles: if the diagram fails to draw, that page is skipped silently and the rest of the report is still produced. A report is never lost because of a problem with the diagram. The consequence for you is that a missing diagram page is not announced — so if the diagram matters to the document, open the file and confirm the page is there.

A standalone PDF of the sheet

⬇ Export SLD to PDF writes the sheet as a PDF on its own.

This is the review copy. It carries the border, the zone grid, the legend band and the title block, so a reviewer can mark it up against a zone reference and hand it back, and it needs nothing but a PDF reader at the far end.

The sheet is written at A3 proportions. For a large plant the physical paper size grows — A3, then A1, then A0 — while those proportions hold, so a long chain is printed on bigger paper rather than being squeezed into A3.

A CAD drawing

⬇ Export SLD to DWG writes the sheet as a drawing file for a drafting team.

Which format you actually get

A .dxf file is always written. It is converted to .dwg only when the ODA File Converter is installed on the machine; with no converter present, the export stays .dxf.

So expect one of two outcomes, and check which one you got:

Neither is a failure. .dxf is a CAD interchange format that every serious CAD program reads, so a .dxf export is usable as it stands — and if your drawing office wants .dwg specifically, converting one file at their end is a smaller job than debugging an export. Look at the extension of the file you produced before sending it, so that nobody downstream is surprised.

The symbols come across as geometry, not as a picture

This is the point of the CAD route. Each symbol's shape is written into the drawing file as real CAD entities, rotated as it sits on screen. The result is a drawing a drafter can select, move, copy and edit — not an image of your screen dropped into a drawing frame.

Practically: the diagram you see is the diagram they open. A transformer placed already rotated to line up with the bus arrives rotated the same way, and a symbol you turned with ⟲ 90° or a typed angle arrives at that angle.

The same holds for a symbol you traced yourself. An imported image symbol is stored as outlines rather than as a picture, which is why it too exports as real geometry. See Importing diagrams and custom symbols.

The sheet frame comes across too

The outer border, the inner frame, the zone grid, the legend band and the title block are all in the CAD file, in the same positions they occupy on screen.

That matters more than it sounds. A drafting team receiving the diagram alone would have to drop it into their own frame and re-letter the zones; receiving the framed sheet, they can work on the drawing itself. Anything you typed into the title block with 📝 Text travels with it — and anything you left blank arrives blank.

Exporting is not saving

All three routes produce a document for somebody else. None of them is how you keep the diagram.

The diagram is part of the session, and the session is saved as a project file. A saved project holds the inputs, the layout, the hand edits, the diagram and the materials list together, so reopening it brings the diagram back exactly as you left it — editable, on the same sheet. Save the project as well as exporting, or the next revision starts from the PDF you sent out. See Projects.

Which route to use when

If you are unsure, send the standalone PDF for agreement and the CAD file for work. The PDF settles what the diagram says; the drawing file is what somebody builds on.

Before you export

Where to go next