Board2Pdf v1.7.2 released in PCM

External Plugins
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Board2Pdf is a KiCad Plugin to create good looking pdf files from the board. The outputted pdf is vector based and searchable.

Version 1.7.2 now released! This version is now available in the Plugin and Content Manager (actually it’s been available a few weeks already).

The main improvement in v1.7.2 compared to v1.6 is that its Command Line Interface is now installable using pip! You can install Board2Pdf simply by running: pip install board2pdf. Then you can use the Board2Pdf CLI by calling board2pdf just like any other application installed from pip. On Windows you have to do this from the KiCad Command Prompt, but in Linux you should be able to do this from your standard terminal. More information can be found in the Wiki Usage - CLI

List of changes:

  • Repackaged to make the CLI installable with pip. Thank you snhobbs!
  • Build script to automatically package the plugin for the PCM. Thank you snhobbs!
  • Fixed bug that caused the footprint values not to be plotted. Thank you Anton Mukhin!
  • Removed the dash in the template names in the default settings.
  • Fixed where and how the CLI looks for the config.ini file. If a ini file is specified by the --ini argument, CLI terminates if the file isn’t found. If no argument is given, CLI looks for board2pdf.config.ini in the same directory as the kicad_pcb file (local), then looks for board2pdf.config.ini in the same directory as Board2Pdf (global) and lastly it looks for default_config.ini in the same directory as Board2Pdf (default).

For basic functionality Board2Pdf uses pypdf which is included when installing Board2Pdf. You don’t need to install any dependencies if this functionality is enough for you.

If you install PyMuPDF you can create the pdf files faster.

More details can be found in the Wiki - Install dependencies .

And more information on this release can be found in the Gitlab repo

v1.7.2 has been tested on KiCad 8.0.5, 7.0.11 and 6.0.11.

Teaser: The next minor release will add the ability to set the transparency of any layer. There’s a beta available for anyone that want to test it. Download this file and install it from the Plugin and Content Manager in KiCad by clicking Install from File… For now this requires PyMuPDF to be installed. I’m not sure if it will be available using pypdf in the future.

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