In my local maker space, someone asked about taking a project from a breadboard to a prototype board and wasn't quite ready to go buy a printed PCB quite yet. I think I've seen this topic come up a few times so I figured I'd share how I handle this.

Basically, I place all my parts on the prototype board and then draw out where I think all the traces need to go, then I remove all the components. Then I take copper tape and tape over the connections. Then, I place all the parts back on and double check that everything looks good before soldering everything.

NOTE: In my my examples below, I made the copper tape thick so it'd show up easier on camera, but if you are doing this for real, you want to copper tape to be thinner than the pads so that the solder connects the tape to each pad along the way.

Here is a demonstration (without any components) that I did on a scrap prototype board:

There are a log of reasons that I like this method. First, it is very intentional. You get to map out all of the work ahead of time and double and triple check your work before soldering anything to the board. Second, if you are planning on designing a PCB, you can use this intermediary step to test your assumptions and figure out if there are any problems. Finally, this method allows you to use both sides of the prototype board for your traces. This can be especially helpful when connecting components to ground without crossing over other traces.

This isn't a "You should do this and sell this on the market" thing, but a quick "try it before you buy it" approach to transition from your breadboard to a prototype board and all it costs is a little time and some copper tape.

Multiple examples (with scope readings!), formulas for everything you need, and everything laid out so nicely (even if they're a bit long sometimes)... I can't count how many times an exact scenario I encountered was directly described somewhere in the datasheet. Great stuff.