There you can just state the logic levels and the diagram is drawn automatically. Another example is my tikz-timing package for timing diagrams. Such things are not possible with drawing tools and then take much more time. I, for example, had several ADC diagrams with a programmable step size in my PhD thesis and actually coded a general form of the document which a copied several times and then only adjusted internal variables to get a different number of curves with different step sizes. Coordinates can be directly given, which is a great benefit for technical diagrams. Especially TikZ and PSTricks allow for loops and conditionals. If you import your diagram from OpenOffice or a similar tool the font may be different and not properly scaled and while such tools can also handle math, the result may look different.Ī further benefit is that you can code/program your diagrams in LaTeX. In addition you can use all the benefits of the (La)TeX typesetting system, like the great math support. A big benefit of drawing your diagrams in LaTeX is also that you can use the same fonts as in the rest of your document and also ensure that the text is properly scaled. LaTeX diagrams can be directly inserted in your LaTeX document, while you need to export them from other programs, which needs to be repeated every time you change the diagram.

Openoffice drawing tools