Back Annotating Eschema from PCBNew

[RolliePollie]

Version 5.1.10
Windows 10

Hello,
I am working on a project and just finished making numerous changes to the PCB in PCBNew.
I do not see any way to back annotate from PCBNew to Eschema in my current version.
A few questions…

1). If I update to the latest version will I be able to do that?
2). Is there any way to conveniently do that in 5.1.10 ?
3). Is there any log kept by KiCad of the changes I made to footprints in PCBNew that might help me know what I’ve changed to make it easier to go into Eschema manually and make those changes to the Schematic?

Thanks

[jmk]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Haven’t looked, but now you have in “tools”:
   *Update PCB from Schematic
   *Update Schematic from PCB

Save a/some copies of your project before attempting to install new version, just in case.
You can install 6.0.8 as well as keep your 5.1.10 in windows.

Download and install 6.0.8 from here, open your project in 6.0.8 and when you save it, it will convert to the new format.
NOTE: during install, you will be prompted to install libraries… Choose “recommended” otherwise there is a lot of stuffing around to get the Kicad libraries back.
You will also have to “migrate” your personal symbol libraries via Preferences / Manage symbol libraries.
There is a button on the lower right, below the list of libraries to perform this job.

Good luck!

[eelik]

Looking at RolliePollie’s 3 questions and jmk’s 3 answers I can’t say how they correlate.

@RolliePollie

1). If I update to the latest version will I be able to do that?
2). Is there any way to conveniently do that in 5.1.10 ?
3). Is there any log kept by KiCad of the changes I made to footprints in PCBNew that might help me know what I’ve changed to make it easier to go into Eschema manually and make those changes to the Schematic?

1. There’s backannotation in v6, i.e. you can change the reference designators, component value fields and net names (if I remember correctly) in the PCB and backannotate them to the schematic. But you can’t change the net connections, add components or anything more complicated.

2. No, v5 doesn’t have that feature.

3. No, KiCad doesn’t keep any log of the changes. It would be like keeping an editing history (undo stack) and being able to search and filter it. I don’t know any software which does that. I think the best you could do is to use a versioning system (git, svn…), commit often and write meaningful commit messages.

[jmk]

@eelik

I’ll give you No. 2
I don’t seem to be able to read the difference between 5.1.10 & 6.1.8… may be age related?

Edit: I seem to be deteriorating by the minute… 6.1.8 ???

[RolliePollie]

TurboCAD does this extensively. It’s extremely useful imo.

[morganfeldon]

“Update Schematic from PCB” was added in KiCad 6.0.

I don’t know a way to populate PCB changes back to the schematic in KiCad 5.

Personally, I go out of my way NOT to make any design changes in PCBnew but instead make those changes to the schematic and then make prodigious use “Update PCB from Schematic”.