Getting it out
Export — ⌘E
File ▸ Export… writes the diagram as vector artwork. Pick the format with the file type in the save dialog, or just type an extension.
SVG is the one to use. It is vector, it is what the app is built around, and it opens
in Illustrator, Inkscape, and every browser. Journals take it, and LaTeX takes it through
svg or after a one-line conversion to PDF.
PNG and PDF are not available in the downloaded app. They need matplotlib, which is deliberately left out of the bundle to keep it small — schemdraw renders the SVG that matters without it. Choosing PNG or PDF gives you an “Export failed” message saying so; nothing is silently written. If you need one, export SVG and convert it, which is a better path anyway:
rsvg-convert, Inkscape and most vector editors will do it without losing quality.
The export draws exactly what the canvas draws, including any symbols that arrived embedded in the file rather than from your own library.
Copy as image — ⇧⌘C
Edit ▸ Copy as Image puts a picture of the diagram on the clipboard. Paste it straight into the lab notebook, the slide, or the message to a colleague — no save dialog, no screenshot tool, no cropping.
It copies the whole diagram, not the selection and not the window: how far you are zoomed in, where the canvas is scrolled, and what is selected make no difference to the picture. The grid, the selection outlines and the handles are never in it — you do not have to turn Clean View on first — and the background is opaque white, so it stays readable pasted onto a dark slide.
The image is drawn at twice canvas scale, which is what makes it survive being enlarged in a slide. It is still a raster: for a figure going into a paper, export SVG.
Clean View — ⇧⌘'
View ▸ Clean View hides everything on the canvas that is not the diagram: the grid, selection outlines, port dots, drag handles. One key, and the window is a picture of your diagram.
It is for when the window itself is the thing being looked at — a screen share, a
demo, a photo of the screen. If you only want the picture, ⇧⌘C above already renders
clean, so you do not need this first. Press it again to get your handles back. It is a
view mode, so it changes nothing in the file and nothing in an export.
For a figure that is going into a paper, export SVG instead: it is vector, it is resolution-independent, and it does not include your window chrome.
The patch list
File ▸ Export patch list (CSV)… writes one row per wire: what it connects, its kind, and every link parameter it carries — connector type, length, loss.
It is the build sheet for the diagram. Someone rebuilding the setup on another bench works from this, not from the picture: it says which cable goes where and what kind of cable it is.
Because a connection’s detail text reads the same connector field the patch list
exports, the drawing and the list cannot disagree. Set it once.
Open the CSV in a spreadsheet, or diff two of them to see what changed between two versions of a setup.
Saving
⌘S saves a .dsd. See The .dsd file for what is in it and why that
matters.