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DanK104

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 6, 2006
37
3
I miss MacDraw, a program for doing simple drawings: boxes with text in them, arrows, etc. Basic stuff, stuff I don't want to use a large complicated program for. During the many years since it was around I have never found a program as easy to use. Any suggestions for a current program that will do the same thing?

Thanks!
Dan
 

Bear

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
I miss MacDraw, a program for doing simple drawings: boxes with text in them, arrows, etc. Basic stuff, stuff I don't want to use a large complicated program for. During the many years since it was around I have never found a program as easy to use. Any suggestions for a current program that will do the same thing?

Thanks!
Dan
I think Paint X might do what you want.
 
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talmy

macrumors 601
Oct 26, 2009
4,726
332
Oregon
Assuming you want a vector based drawing program, look at OmniGraffle or EazyDraw. The former is great for charts and the later as a general vector drawing program.
 
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spyguy10709

macrumors 65816
Apr 5, 2010
1,007
659
One Infinite Loop, Cupertino CA
I miss MacDraw, a program for doing simple drawings: boxes with text in them, arrows, etc. Basic stuff, stuff I don't want to use a large complicated program for. During the many years since it was around I have never found a program as easy to use. Any suggestions for a current program that will do the same thing?

Thanks!
Dan

Paintbrush http://paintbrush.sourceforge.net
is absolutely great, and it's free! (and REALLY easy!)
 

rgcc

macrumors newbie
Mar 10, 2011
1
1
Mac draw replCement

I also was addicted to the old McDraw program. Did everything with it. Was a general contractor on extensions on my house and sold it to the local zoning community as a full up sketch. But iDraw from my Mac side of the computer does not even come close to the functionality of the old McDrwa program. Oh to have McDraw back again in some sort of an application Mac, or PC side.

iDraw does not come close. Don't waste your money.
 
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Partron22

macrumors 68030
Apr 13, 2011
2,655
808
Yes
MacDraft is still around...
And still perfectly good for drafting plans for cabinets, endtables, garden sheds and the like.
I've used both OmniGraffle and EazyDraw, they have their positive sides, but neither is as good as MacDraft for producing dimensioned drawings for use in building stuff.
 

Microspot

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2016
8
3
Aylesford, UK
Hi guys! We now have a MacRumours account to answer any of your queries. Bit late to this thread but MacDraft 6.1 is available at microspot.com we have ALOT of customers coming to us with a history with MacDraw and hopefully some of you will agree that its still fantastic for scaled dimensioned drawing :)
 
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weinelb

macrumors newbie
Apr 23, 2016
1
0
Pinellas Park, FL
Hi guys! We now have a MacRumours account to answer any of your queries. Bit late to this thread but MacDraft 6.1 is available at microspot.com we have ALOT of customers coming to us with a history with MacDraw and hopefully some of you will agree that its still fantastic for scaled dimensioned drawing :)

I had a MacDraft license in the '70s and '80s. It was a great tool then, except for the limited included libraries, but still used MacDraw for other than house and garden plans. Do your records go back to the early Mac days? Would that reduce the cost of a Pro license? Would I have to buy additional libraries to do network and software drawings as I did then?
 

Microspot

macrumors newbie
Feb 8, 2016
8
3
Aylesford, UK
I had a MacDraft license in the '70s and '80s. It was a great tool then, except for the limited included libraries, but still used MacDraw for other than house and garden plans. Do your records go back to the early Mac days? Would that reduce the cost of a Pro license? Would I have to buy additional libraries to do network and software drawings as I did then?

Hi!

Its possible we have you on record yes. If you can drop me an email with your name, email and any additional information regarding your version of MacDraw we can see what sort of deal we can sort out :) DM me here or email me at aaron.lamb@Microspot.co.uk :)
 

KevinKillion

macrumors newbie
Jan 19, 2011
4
0
Chicago
I strongly recommend LIBREOFFICE (https://www.libreoffice.org/). It is a FREE office suite and a successor to OpenOffice. And YES, it does have a vector drawing program like MacDraw, and it can open MacDraw documents. My favorite feature of LibreOffice is its ability to import word processing docs written in any of a host of obsolete formats, including WriteNow, Word Perfect, MacWrite, etc.
 

talmy

macrumors 601
Oct 26, 2009
4,726
332
Oregon
Seven and a half years after my first reply in this thread and I'm still using Eazydraw to do figures for books I am writing. I've got but don't use OmniGraffle anymore.
 

Motti Shneor

macrumors newbie
Apr 19, 2010
5
9
Of all these suggestions, I like OmniGraffle the best, for being so well designed, you could simply ignore the overwhelming power of what it can do, and draw simple things quickly, and be done with it -- however MacDraw came free with my Mac, and the minimal price for OmniGraffle is $150 - way too much for the simple tasks of MacDraw. Other suggestions (MacDraft and others are even worse in this respect, demanding No less than $250 for the most basic version). I never experimented with Keynote and Pages as "drawing software" but will certainly try it now, as I was writing a document in Pages, and looked for a MacDraw replacement to do some simple drawing for my Pages document... Where do they hide the functionality?
 

DavidBeav

macrumors newbie
Nov 22, 2014
8
3
I've tried a bunch of these (not all), but just installed EazyDraw and I think it's the one. So many others have complex UIs that require reading the manual; EazyDraw is very natural to a MacDraw user from 1984.
 
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