Best Practices for Organizing Symbol Libraries in KiCad 9.0

Schematic Library Symbols
1

Hi everyone,

I’m just getting started with KiCad v9.0 after working with Altium, and I’m finding the way libraries are handled a bit confusing. I want to learn what the best practices are for organizing my symbols.

So far, I’ve managed to import a library from UltraLibrarian and set up a path to my symbol library. However, I don’t see how to create, for example, a custom RESISTOR library. Right now, I just have a lot of different libraries with individual component names, and my symbols folder is a mess with all components mixed together.

With footprints, I see that example libraries are organized in folders ending with .pretty, which makes things neater. How are symbol libraries supposed to be organized in KiCad? What’s the recommended way to group symbols (like all resistors together) and keep things tidy?

If I’m posting this in the wrong section or breaking any forum rules, please let me know so I can fix it.

Any tips or references would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

2

For symbols, libraries are single files. You probably do not want to merge them by hand by editing the text files. Although that would work.

Best is to do this in the KiCad symbol editor.

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3

.pretty is actually not a requirement, just legacy convention.

Basic facts are: Symbol libraries are 1 or more symbols contained in .kicad_sym files. Use the symbol editor to manage them. Footprint libraries are directories containing .kicad_mod files each one footprint. Use the footprint editor to manage them.

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4

Most online sources provide kicad_sym “libraries” of single symbols. It’s unwieldy to add each one as a separate library in the library table.

Probably better to create a library of your own (project or global, your choice). Use File -> New Library in the symbol editor.

Then, with that library open in the symbol editor, use File -> Import -> Symbol... and import the kicad_sym that you downloaded and unzipped, which will add that one symbol into the actual library you will use.

The same applies to footprints, but also it so happens that you can just copy-paste the .kicad_mod files into the library.

Don’t add the parts to the KiCad stock libraries, or they will be removed when you update the libraries.

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5

Thanks a lot everyone for your help, I really appreciate it!

6

This Beginners Guide and this Library Tips, both in the FAQ may be of assistance to you.

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7

A few more comments on tidying personal libraries.

The quickest and easiest way to move symbols (or footprints) to new personal libraries is:

  • Open the Symbol Editor (or Footprint Editor for your footprints).
  • Pin both the “to” and “from” libraries to the top of the library list (Right Mouse Button > Pin Library). This can save much scrolling.
  • Find the item you wish to move then RMB > Save as.
  • In the newly opened window, keep or change the name, and highlight the new Library.
  • Click OK.

In case you haven’t found it yet, most common symbols are to be found in the Kicad symbol library titled “Device”.

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