Hi,

is there any free Software available for creating ERD?

yes -- Data Modelling Tools

Yes. Powerpoint.

blindman, powerpoint is free only for 60 days, then you gots to cough up for Office

Uhm....what I meant was...its free if you already paid for it....?

Ok, so PP is not free, and not an answer to the question, that point is closed.

I haven't touched the evil empire stuff for a couple of years. Does PP now do ERDs, really ? I know it had symbols on the ends of lines, but is that all you need for "drawing ERDs"; no stencils, no qualifying what each end of the line is connected to, no rules ?

That is probably the reason that people are drawing all these funny diagrams (sans ERD symbols and rules ) and calling them "ERDs".
Hey, that's an ERD coz I say so ... don't worry about the symbols, you and I know what they are supposed to mean ... what ? they're wrong ? so just change them ... anyway it's free, so that 's all you're getting ... what ? yeah, only 800 big ones

So let me get this right. You have to pay $800 to get a non-ERD. And that's better than a free ERD drawing tool. Yeah, coz I said so, ok. Gatesian logic. Hilarious.

Back to the seeker's question, if all you need is a drawing tool (no ERD rules), hell, there are hundreds. And most if not all of them are cheaper than Orifice. Mine costs $49 USD and draws absolutely anything; hundreds of stencils (thousands if you search the internet); fully object-oriented; great object-line connectons; colours, shadows, layers, canvases, grouping, tables. Imagine PP plus CorelDraw truly integrated, plus 5 years maturity.

As for the real ERD tools (rules, connections, no funny symbols or quirky lines, no XML or UML translated to ERDs), no, they are not free.

Pencil and paper are always my first weapon of choice.
If I'm designing with a group then whiteboard and dry-wipe pens are favourable.
When it comes to putting them in to the computer I also use pretty primitive methods:
- Word or it's open source equivalents; OpenOffice, StarOffice etc (what I use depends on who I'm doing work for)
- Paint, or better still Sumo Paint
- and if I'm really desperate then I knock up simple plain text diagrams using notepad[2].

In fact, most office style products give you the ability to draw pretty diagrams

...and yet you continue ranting pointlessly for three more paragraphs.
You do realize, Derek, that you are your own best parody?
Quite an accomplishment.

yeah I try to avoid Apple gear myself....

you are wrong, it costs $300

This is getting very old....and you don't mention what "mine" is....

Me, I like to get a room full of SME's...flip charts, white boards to start

Now how much does THAT cost

And I guess the short answer is no.....

Whats software do you have now?

How about Visio 2000?

ERWin is like 5k

Powerpoint??? Really blind dude?

What are you trying to do actually? Reverse Engineer stuff?

Yup, really.

Download and change the extension to exe

is that the trial version, brett, or are you distributing pirated software?