I’ve searched for information on using a different default sheet for the Schematic Editor. All I found that provided anything useful was this link. I get that it’s saying to create a template to use, but the answer ends with, “Then use it to create new projects and all settings are there.”
I’m not fully clear on this. I used the Drawing Sheet Editor to create a new drawing sheet. At this point I’m not even clear how to specify to use that new sheet in an empty project.
Also, from what I see, it seems that I can’t change the default sheet or specify a different default sheet. It looks like the thing to do is create an empty project (as stated in the link), then save it as a template and, from then on, use “New From Template.” I don’t see a way to specify or change defaults, like the drawing sheet, the page size, or any fields that might be used to fill in the sheet info, such as the designer or company name.
I was trying to make template when I started to use KiCad. It was V 4.0.7 those time. But I gave up. When trying to save a project as template I was asked for something I even didn’t understood what I am asked about.
I have done my Empty project containing almost empty schematic (it has my drawing sheet and in bottom left corner it has 3 fiducials to not forget of them as for many years I didn’t know they exists and was never even asked to place them) and totally empty (even without anything at edge.cuts layer and with drawing sheet replaced by my own having only small cross at 0,0 location (top left sheet corner)) PCB (but with modified from time to time Board Setups). Those time all my PCBs were 2 layers. When I started to design also 4 layer PCBs I have separate Empty4 project for them.
I start each new project by copying this PCB previous version project files or by copying one of this empty projects. Just when copying all project files (if there are files not having project name I delete them) I replace destination name for files *.* with MyNewName.* and I have new project ready.
Yes, you are basically right. KiCad does not have a method for setting the defaults for a new project, and starting from a (custom) project template is the closest you can get at the moment.
Apart from that, there are several locations where you can import some settings from another project.
The relevant section in the Drawing Sheet Editor documentation:
says: The Drawing Sheet Editor reads and writes KiCad drawing sheet files (.kicad_wks). These files can be used as custom drawing sheets for schematic and PCB designs by selecting a custom drawing sheet in the Page Setup dialog in each editor.
So that answers the first question how to use a custom drawing sheet. The second question is how to ensure it’s applied to all new projects. As stated, you create a new empty project with a custom drawing sheet, save it as a template, and use New From Template thenceforth.
Working through all the advice and suggestions on this thread. While doing so, another question came up.
I have a few starter projects I’m working on. I started them using the default drawing sheet. Is there a way to change those over to my preferred one?
The only way I can think of is to copy all the components, then close the editor and open a new one, but, as best I know, there’s only one schematic per project.
And this additional picture shows where you change the "drawing sheet " in the page settings dialog.
Note: you have to make a strategic decison:
if you want to have one drawing sheet, and all projects point to the same drawing sheet, then save the drawing sheet at a central place on your harddisk (C:\your_Kicad_parts\drawing_shett). Note however: if you later use the “Archive project” function from the kicad main manager then this centralized dws-file will not be archived within your project
option 2) is to place the drawing sheet inside the project directory of every project and point directl to this file. (shown in my picture - note the filename is without path)
