After exporting footprints to a new library there are properties copied from the schematic symbol that not only serve no purpose, but are inaccurate for all but the one part referenced (in this case C16). How can copying these extraneous properties be prevented, or these extraneous properties removed from the models in the “.pretty” directories?
Reference C16
Value .1uF
Footprint 07PCB10-000T:C_0603_1608Metric
Datasheet .\datasheets\CL10B104KA8NNWC.pdf
Description 0.1 µF ±10% 25V Ceramic Capacitor X7R 0603 (1608 Metric)
Manufacturer Samsung
MPN CL10B104KA8NNWC
Tolerance 10%
Voltage 25V
Dielectric X7R
Type Ceramic
etc.
Create a KiCad project that you only use for maintenance of your libraries. Then first copy the “new” symbol or footprint into you (I assume global) library, and then cleanup the library symbol by loading in the symbol editor (or footprint editor) and delete anything you don’t want in the library symbol.
What you describe would work, but is the solution I’m trying to avoid. Manual editing of every footprint/symbol isn’t practical for a design with hundreds of unique footprints. It would be easier to write a program/script to strip out/change the properties.
If you want to do some scripting, you can start by looking at the descriptions of KiCad’s file formats:
I don’t know where you are in your journey of adopting KiCad, but looking at the list of metadata you have posted about your capacitor, it looks like you do not really want to delete that information. It is possible you are now ready for looking into the Database driven libraries that are also supported by KiCad.
The goal here is that the database holds all the meta information, (inclusive links to minimal symbol and footprints) and then generates complete parts from that. KiCad does not do the database itself. KiCad only interfaces to an external database. People have successfully adopted existing company databases from a preexisting PCB design suite into KiCad by “adding a few columns in the database”.