Copy/paste multiple components in schematic and PCB

Layout
18

This exactly is the purpose of the Paste Special… → Unique Designators tool. I’ll be honest that it is a little cumbersome/clunky but it works for my needs for now.

TL;DR

In simplified way I do this:

  1. Ensure schematic symbols/PCB footprint desginators are synchronised
  2. Copy/Paste special… schematic block
  3. Copy/Pate special… PCB block
  4. Synchronise PCB and schematic in destination project (Update PCB from Schematic) using Re-link footprints to schematic symbols based on their reference designators

After this, everything will be in sync. You can now use the re-annotation tools to reannotate as desired. When synchronising schematic/PCB the second time you should not select to “Re-link footprints..”.

Detailed steps

The more detailed steps to above would be:

  1. Open two instances of KiCad, one with the source and another with the destination project.
  2. Synchronise the schematic and PCB on both projects (Tools->Update PCB from Schematic) without re-linking designators
  3. (Schematic editor - Source project) Select the block you wish to copy and Ctrl+C (don’t deselect!)
  4. (Schematic editor - Destination project) Choose a sheet to paste into (see note 1). Right click, Paste Special... → Assign Unique Reference Designators to Pasted Symbols
  5. (PCB editor - Source project) Select the corresponding block on the PCB (See note 2)
  6. (PCB editor - Destination project) Right click, Paste Special... → Assign Unique Reference Designators to Pasted Symbols (see note 1)
  7. (PCB editor - Destination project) Select Tools->Update PCB from Schematic, ensuring you select Re-link footprints to schematic symbols based on their reference designators.
  8. Now you can reannotate as you wish, just remember to deselect “Re-link footprints…” next time you do your update.

Notes:

  1. If (in the destination project) the sheet that you paste into happens to be instantiated multiple times, Paste Special in the schematic will still work as expected and create unique designators for each instance. However, when pasting in the PCB Editor, you will need to repeat step 6 as many times as there are instances for the sheet you pasted into.
  2. You can either select the block on the PCB manually or keep the selection in the schematic editor and right click → Select on PCB. Then in the PCB editor, you can use the “Expand selection” tool (U) to select adjacent tracks.

References:

Announcement post of the Paste Special feature: Post-v5 new features and development news - #379 by Qbort
Implementation detail of Paste Special with unique annotations (in case of interest): Paste in KiCad v6 - Google Docs

8 Likes