Drawing floorplan

[holgalee]

Hi all, I need to draw some fairly simple floorplans for my company, showing the facilities on the different levels. I'll need to type some text as well. The floorplans should be saved as image files (e.g. jpg). A colleague had previously done them in Powerpoint but it's just too cumbersome to work with.

Does anyone know of any good software to use, preferably free ones? It will be good if I can create different layers (to overlay the old ones created using Powerpoint). I do have Illustrator but I doubt if it's the easiest software to use for this purpose. I came across SmartDraw and taking a quick look, it seems promising. But I don't know whether there are watermarks or I can't save the files, etc.

TIA.

 

[DaSchmarotzer]

I would recommend the "PAINT.NET" program or "The Gimp", both of which are free. Paint dot net (sometimes referred to as PDN) is simpler than GIMP but the later has more features.

I personally use Photoshop, but those are the two programs that I know about that would fit your needs.

EDIT: Both of these are basically photo-manipulation painting programs.

EDIT2: I used them in the past because they can handle indexed images better than Photoshop.

 

[holgalee]

Cool, I'll check out PAINT.NET. I already have Photoshop, but as you say, it doesn't handle some things well, like lines and shapes.

 

[karandpr]

I use AutoCad in college and TdhCad which is free at home.I am a civil engg student so I like vector based soft..I heard inkscape illustrator is also good in handling files.

 

[johnlgalt]

I use Visio, but I also have a M$ TechNet license, so it's free to me.

A really good alternative is DIA - see A Free Open Source Alternative to Microsoft Visio for a review and links.

 

[Isthmus]

Visio is the program you want, but it is not free. I use it at work and it is great for this kind of application. I think Libre Office has a Visio equivalent (Libre Office Draw), but it is not as good (yet). It is free though and should allow you to do what you are trying to do.

You can read more about it here:

Draw Features LibreOffice

I don't think you can download Draw by itself though (I could be wrong). at worse you have to download the entire Libre Office Suite. It is free and I would say it is the office suite alternative to MS Office available in the market (and it is improving rapidly).