Export schematic symbols to library

In the PCB Editor there is a function to File → Export → Footprints to New Library. This works great!

But is there anything equivalent for the Schematic Editor?

I’ve just tested the Altium importer and it worked great! But I’d like to create project libraries for all the symbols and footprints used in the imported project.

I’m currently using 6.0.2 under Windows.

1 Like

This is a logical functionality to wish for.
In KiCad V5 (upto december 2021) schematic symbols themselvels were not stored in the schematic, but the schematic just had links to external libraries which held the graphic data for the symbols, and storing that data in the schematic itself is thus still quite new to KiCad.

I do not know if the KiCad developers have just not thought of adding this feature, or if it’s just a result of priorities in the order in which features are implemented. You could have a look at the open issues at gitlab to check if there is already a request for this, and open an issue if you can’t find it. (There are currently some 1500 open issues for KiCad)

with github you are guaranteed to get almost all the symbols of your project. Try visiting their website and be assured of the best outcome.
You can try to see through this blog for more legit imformation on how the footprint can be added.
[How to make a footprint in KiCad? - PCB Design Tutorial - PCBway](How to make a footprint in KiCad? - PCB Design Tutorial - PCBway?
It will be so helpful

I just realized that when importing the Altium schematic files a symbol library is created for every Altium schematic page that I import. So now I have 10 symbol libraries created for me, and no need to export the symbols. Now I need to find a way to merge these 10 libaries into 1, but that’s probably possible using the Symbol Editor in the Schematic Editor (I’m trying hard not to call the applications Eeschema and Pcbnew :wink: ).

At the very least I can manually select every symbol, right click and select Save As. Really boring to do with ~60 symbols, but definitely possible.

@paulvdh Thanks! I’ll try to find if this feature request is already reported and report it if it’s not. My track record of finding issues in gitlab is horrible though, I’ve added some duplicated in the past. :wink:

@simonmugo Thank you for trying to help! My issue is not that I don’t know how to make footprints in KiCad. I have 14 years experience of that. :slight_smile: But rather that it would be useful to be able to export all symbols of a schematic to a new symbol library.

You do not really have to do it :wink:
You already found a quite decent workaround, It’s a quite low priority thing and there are already enough open issues to keep the KiCad developers busy without distracting them with new issues.

Very true! Personally I don’t really see a need for the function at the moment. So on one hand it may be a bad idea to bother the developers with a request I don’t really need.

On the other hand this is a feature I really think should be there and would help a lot in some situations. The most usual scenario that comes to mind is when sharing the schematic with others who would like to continue to work on it. In that case a project library with all the symbols should really be available. If it’s not possible to extract one from the schematic, then the creator of the schematic would need to copy all used symbols from his/her libraries to a project specific one and then re-link the symbols in the schematic with the newly created lib. Lots of for something that could be just the push of a button an which is already possible in the PCB Editor.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.