Eeschema Textbox...forcing new lines in longer notes

von_Whimhurst · October 12, 2025, 9:54pm

I am using V8.0.9-0 for Linux (Ubuntu / Linux Mint flavor)

I am trying to create a set of notes for my schematic, as a (large) textbox which I have placed on a hierarchical sheet.

I want to space the text on separate lines. There is no “bullet” or “numbering” option in Textbox so I do realize that I will have to denote each line manually, if I desire this. But that is not my stumbling block….

The problem I am having is, if I enter the text in the Textbox editor with carriage returns at the end of each line, KiCad will make them appear within the textbox with each line written over top of the others.

Try as I might, I cannot force a carriage return and so, a new line. These do NOT work

Enter (i.e, “carriage return”)
CTRL+Enter (this combo causes the dialog box to close);
ALT+Enter (this combo causes the dialog box to close);
SHIFT+Enter (this combo causes the dialog box to close);
__ (i.e., 2 or more spaces at the end of the line — useless);

Surely, there must be a way to do this. It is a very common text-editing feature. I don’t want to “wrap” the text within the box because these “bullet points” are not all of the same length (and so, manually adjusting the text-box width will not provide the desired results).

BobZ · October 12, 2025, 10:28pm

Either I misunderstand or that is not what I get. No problem entering multi-line text in schem editor. I use enter key only for line breaks. And I get text with line breaks on the schematic.

What happens if you copy-paste from some text editor or word processor software?

If necessary I could probably record a video…

Application: KiCad Schematic Editor x64 on x64

Version: 9.0.4, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.8
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
OpenGL: Intel, Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics, 4.6.0 - Build 32.0.101.6881

Build Info:
Date: Aug 18 2025 00:41:45
wxWidgets: 3.2.8 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.88.0
OCC: 7.9.1
Curl: 8.13.0-DEV
ngspice: 44
Compiler: Visual C++ 1942 without C++ ABI
KICAD_IPC_API=ON

Locale:
Lang: en_US
Enc: UTF-8
Num: 1,234.5
Encoded кΩ丈: D0BACEA9E4B888 (sys), D0BACEA9E4B888 (utf8)

paulvdh · October 12, 2025, 10:29pm

For me it “just works” (Pressing enter in the text entry box goes to the next line).

There is also very little difference for me between: Schematic Editor / Place / Add Text and Schematic Editor / Place / Add Text Box. The text box just places an extra rectangle around the text, but both work multi-line.

I’m using:

Application: KiCad Schematic Editor x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 8.0.9-8.0.9-0~ubuntu20.04.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.2
	FreeType 2.10.1
	HarfBuzz 2.6.4
	FontConfig 2.13.1
	libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.2.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.40.0 librtmp/2.3

Platform: Linux Mint 20.3, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, xfce, x11
OpenGL: AMD, AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.42.0, 5.15.0-139-generic, LLVM 12.0.0), 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.2.6

Build Info:
	Date: Feb 19 2025 14:25:13
	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.71.0
	OCC: 7.6.3
	Curl: 7.68.0
	ngspice: 43
	Compiler: GCC 9.4.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:

von_Whimhurst · October 12, 2025, 11:06pm

Hi, Paul:
Thanks for the fast response

here is what I am seeing

von_Whimhurst · October 12, 2025, 11:09pm

Also, I do not recall having this problem in previous versions of KiCad running on Linux (Mint)

I have not been doing much schematic work recently so this is the first time this issue has cropped up for me.

paulvdh · October 12, 2025, 11:19pm

I can’t reproduce this. It does look like some kind of bug. Does this only happen in the schematic and with this project? or also in other projects?

You can try to exit KiCad, then rename the configuration directory: (~/.config/kicad/8.0) KiCad will then create a fresh configuration directory with defaults. After that you can put the renamed directory back to get your own modified settings back.

For the rest, Bugs in V8 are not going to be fixed, and therefore updating to V9 may be a better option.

davidsrsb · October 13, 2025, 12:08am

Works as expected on V9.0.5 on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

von_Whimhurst · October 13, 2025, 12:22am

v9.0 is not yet available as a Synaptic Pkg Manager update for Linux Mint, so I am opting for fixing the v8 installation.

So OK, I did the renaming of the\~/.config file as you suggested, and when I ran KiCad again it did give me the desired results.
So, it seem that a glitch occurred when I customized the configuration (preferred font, for example)
But I am not sure of precisely what you mean when you say,

Do you mean that I should cut-and-paste the old directory’s contents into the newly created directory…or what, exactly? Here is what the directory looks like now

paulvdh · October 13, 2025, 12:29am

Just to be clear: So now you do have multi line comment boxes?

The configuration directory has a whole lot of files with settings that can be configured via the GUI, but they are also readable text files. Just copying files over each other is a bit of blind work. I prefer to use a source code program to view differences and merge settings. You can for example use meldmerge to view differences between the “old” and the “new”.

von_Whimhurst · October 13, 2025, 12:59am

Yes, I now have text on separate lines. Amazing!
Thanks for the pointer to Meld / Meldmerge. I just installed it and look forward to trying it with the various files!
Do you have any suggestions as to what I should look for, viz: the difference between the files?

davidsrsb · October 13, 2025, 2:32am

I have not experimented with changing fonts. This might be a Wayland glitch.

von_Whimhurst · October 13, 2025, 3:15am

Wayland? The name of the software developer?

davidsrsb · October 13, 2025, 3:51am

A very troublesome display controller, that has replaced X11 in many Linux distributions. It has limitations that mess up KiCad and other complex multi window packages

paulvdh · October 13, 2025, 8:45am

Yes, meldmerge highlights the differences between files (or groups of files). It can either compare single files or whole directories. I find the way that you select the sources to compare in meld a bit cumbersome, and I tend to circumvent that via the command line.

paul@cezanne:~$ cd .config/kicad/
paul@cezanne:~/.config/kicad$ ls -hl
total 60K
drwxrwxr-x 2 paul paul 4,0K Jul 27 2022 2022-07-27
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Jan 9 2023 2023-02-22_7.0
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Jan 4 2024 2024-01-16_7.99
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Jan 18 2024 2024-01-19_8.0
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Aug 14 2023 2024-02-12_7.0
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Jan 21 2024 2024-02-12_8.0
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Feb 25 2024 2024-04-24_8.0
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Jul 9 2024 2024-07-19_8.0
drwxrwxr-x 3 paul paul 4,0K Jul 30 2024 2024-07-30_8.99
drwxrwxr-x 2 paul paul 4,0K Dec 21 2021 3d
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Apr 20 2022 6.0
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Dec 20 2022 6.99
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Feb 17 2024 7.0
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Aug 1 2024 8.0
drwxrwxr-x 4 paul paul 4,0K Sep 4 2024 8.99
paul@cezanne:~/.config/kicad$ meld 2024-04-24_8.0 8.0

Then meld highlights differences in blue, and you can either edit the files with text editor functions, or click on the arrows to copy lines from left to right, or from right to left.