I am strugling to find a way to create a custom Front paste shape as required for instance for a SMT spacer from Wurth (9774050151R). It requires a shape that is not circular nor rectangular. Of course, you can just draw lines on the F.paste layer, but it seems not possible to fill a closed area. Can someone assist ? FYI, I am still using the footprint editor from Kicad version 4.07. thanks
See how in KiCad libraries paste opening are made for some QFN packages with thermal pad and vias.
I can’t name exact one as I don’t use KiCad libraries - just look through them.
Edit.
I didn’t noticed 4.0.7. It is KiCad version I started in 2017 and decided to not design anything while waiting for V5. In my opinion V4 had important restrictions making it very hard to be used.
I think what you need was added in V6 or V7.
Hi Piotr. Indeed, but from the standard libs (QFN’s with exposed pads) , there are no examples with other than rectangular solder paste shapes.
To avoid these restrictions, I will be forced to switch to the latest Kicad version. But somehow reluctant to do so due to the unknow side effects of converting my large custom symbol library.
Thanks for your feedback.
KiCad V4 is really ancient. No one should be forced to work with such an obsolete KiCad version. 
The transition from V4 to V5 was a quite big step, and from V5 to V6 was an even bigger step (V6 has 3 years of software development in it). Now (V7 and V8) KiCad is on a yearly release schedule, and changes are smaller and more gradual.
I do not expect problems with your library conversion. KiCad can just open older KiCad libraries. You may have problems with converting / upgrading your projects. In V4, KiCad projects were directly dependent on their libraries, and projects became unusable when a library was not available. That has been fixed (back in V6). But because of this legacy you may have to do some manual work to upgrade the projects.
@fox Nice to show a screenshot, but if you add some text of how you made that pad, then others can also easily reproduce it
I think there are.
I have copied an example from there and modified to have my footprints.
While not designing PCB with V4 (except one test) waiting for V5 I spend time designing my symbols and footprints.
At your place I would install last V5 version and then open each my library and save it and see if everything is OK. Then I would do the same with V6 and V7.
All symbols and footprints I designed with V4 are still with me in V7 now.
I didn’t moved to V8 yet.
On F.Paste, draw two 90° arcs and connect the ends with a line.
Select all, right click, “Create from Selection… > Create Polygon from Selection”.
Done!
3 Likes
@fox : thanks for the usefull feedback. I did some temporarily artwork in V4 to resolve the immediate issue. I will experiment with V7/V8 soon.