I’m new to KiCAD (but not new to PCB Design) and I want to determine if KiCAD is to be of use for a company, so I tried out a lot of things. So I did with the Drawing sheet editor to create a template for our needs. I already stumble about the “snap to grid”, because I setup all values to the recommended value of 50mils (schematic and symbol). But the drawing editor doesn’t care about the settings. What went wrong? (see the screenshot below, the simple line is of grid)
Are you using 9.0.5 by chance? It has a grid bug. 9.0.6 release candidate just go released, so the update will most likely come out in the coming days.
In the meantime, use the release candidate or 9.0.4
I’m using a self compiled version, see below. I do not need a self compiled version, but our security software found a “GenericMalware” in the official build 9.05. So it was “easier” for me to do it this way…
(But your guess was very good, in normal case I would install 9.05. I will also follow the release notes by now…)
Application: KiCad x64 on x64
Version: 9.99.0-3600-g063430e488, debug build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.3
FreeType 2.13.3
HarfBuzz 10.2.0
FontConfig 2.15.0
libcurl/8.13.0-DEV Schannel zlib/1.3.1
Platform: Windows 11 (build 26100), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
Date: Oct 10 2025 09:02:14
wxWidgets: 3.3.0 (wchar_t,STL containers)
Boost: 1.88.0
OCC: 7.9.1
Curl: 8.13.0-DEV
ngspice: 45.2
Compiler: Visual C++ 1944 without C++ ABI
Its admirable that you want to test but you really shouldn’t be using the nightlies test build to evaluate KiCad . . . it’s more than likely full of bugs, and any projects you create won’t be accessible from the “stable” V9.x.y versions.
I have done my sheets in 2017 with KiCad V4. I don’t remember if when editing sheet the 50mils grid was in any way important. I think that 50mils grid is only important when drawing the schematic to ensure everything contacts with each other. As you not connect schematic to sheet frame (I assume you don’t have such need) you don’t need frame being in grid.
I have just been experimenting a bit with this in KiCad V8.0.9 and I do not understand the behavior. For me, the grid was set to half millimeters, and the lines in the title block are also metric based, but when I draw a line, then the coordinates follow snap points on the grid, but the final coordinates are not rounded numbers. X coordinates end with “,989” and Y coordinates end with “,0022”.
And the same numbers appear when drawing a rectangle. So the grid works, but there is a fixed offset from the round numbers.
Another issue: Just like in OlafDonkers screenshot, I do see the grid overrides in Drawing Sheet Editor / Preferences / Preferences / Drawing Sheet Editor / Grids, but I can not find a way to enable or disable these grid overrides. The schematic (And PCB) editor(s) have an extra icon with a lock for this in the left toolbar, but that is not in the drawing sheet editor in V8.0.9.
Internally KiCad works in metric, with integers on a nanometer scale. That is why the decimals stay the same regardless of the whole MM grid I work on.
There is also no need at all to work on a 50mil grid in the drawing sheet editor. It is only an important issue for electrical connections in the schematic, as all the symbols in KiCad libraries are based on an 1.27mm grid. (And 2.54mm pitch between pins of the symbols).
I am mildly curious if others see the X.989 and Y.0022 numbers when working on a metric grid (with whole millimeters).
For the rest, I see this topic as an oddity, and something that should be fixed (probably has tho be reported first). But it’s not a very important issue.
I don’t remember using grids in 4.0.7 Drawing sheet editor but I can imagine that when grid behavior was changed (and certainly there were some works on it) than being it also used in Drawing sheet editor could be forgotten.
Who uses Drawing sheet editor? I have used it only once to create my sheet for schematic and as empty as possible sheet for PCB (I have there only 2 short lines - small cross at absolute 0,0 position).
I partially agree. The drawing sheet editor is probably the least used part of KiCad. Most people don’t use it at all but just use the default sheet layout. And as a result, it also does not get much attention from the developers. The basic capability to draw some lines, add a bit of graphics and some text fields is “mostly adequate” for it’s task. But still, grid being off is such a basic bug that it should be fixed some day…
it took some time to get the versions 9.0.5 and 8.0.9 up and running. They all have nearly the same behavior regarding the grid. It’s also a bit confusing when the coordinates are equal/greater than 10000, the values are shown with exponential notation (e.g. 1.691e+04 instead of 16910).
Anyway, I will accept this behavior, only wanted to be sure I didn’t made anything wrong or didn’t understand something.
In 2017 together with moving from Protel to KiCad I also moved from mils to mm. Before when making footprints I had to continuously convert mm from datasheet to mils then I had to convert PCB size from mils to mm to just specify my PCB dimensions. Also any front panel dimensions (LED, keys positions I had to convert). Now I have everything in mm.
In Protel I was working with 5 mils grid, now I work with 0.1mm grid.
I have used it only once to create my sheet for schematic and as empty as possible sheet for PCB (I have there only 2 short lines - small cross at absolute 0,0 position).