Full of sheet on making my own schematic sheet

This seems like a basic question, but the only sort-of-answer I can find is from 2016.

I do not like the existing schematic sheet format drawing because the title block takes up too much space. So I thought I would try to make my own.

I have drawn a USA size “A” sheet using Visio and output to a .bmp. Made a schematic sheet using the image converter. I have also tried it with a .png and achieved the same silly result. In case anyone wants to try their luck, I have also attached a zip containing the .png and .wks (output of the image converter) versions of my highly creative A sheet design.

So I attempted to replace the existing schematic sheet with my new one. But now I am stuck with this. I cannot figure out how to move my sheet drawing (red) so it is properly positioned around my schematic?

Bobs_A_Sheet_03.zip (3.8 KB)

I can move the schematic but the white rectangle of drawing extents stays where it is.

Is there perhaps something built into the .bmp or .png drawing which defines where it will appear when I import it into my schematic?

Application: KiCad Schematic Editor x64 on x64

Version: 7.0.2, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.2
FreeType 2.12.1
HarfBuzz 6.0.0
FontConfig 2.14.1
libcurl/7.88.1-DEV Schannel zlib/1.2.13

Platform: Windows 11 (build 22621), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW

Build Info:
Date: Apr 15 2023 19:18:27
wxWidgets: 3.2.2 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.81.0
OCC: 7.6.3
Curl: 7.88.1-DEV
ngspice: 40
Compiler: Visual C++ 1934 without C++ ABI

Build settings:
KICAD_SPICE=ON

Thanks

I just copy and paste.

Select everything inside the white box, copy and paste into its brand new home. :slightly_smiling_face:

Thank you

That works, as far as it goes. But what do I do with the stupid white rectangle?

The “zoom to objects” button puts me where I want, but the white rectangle stubbornly remains where it is…

So what kind of object is it? Select it and look at the status bar.

FWIW I don’t have SWRs on my layouts so I don’t know where you got it from.

Funny…I never noticed the status bar before. But I cannot select the white rectangle. I get no reaction when I click on it. Also no reaction (by the SWR) when I include it in a large selection window.

I think the rectangle is the “schematic page limit”.
Enable/disable globally with Preferences → Schematic Editor–>Display options–>Appearance–>Show page limits

But working outside the “page limit” could (maybe) later on create problems with print/plot the schematic. At least at the pcb-editor the print/plot functions sometimes only take the “page area” into account.

Thanks. That works.
alternatively:
OK; so I can move my schematic to within the page limits. But how do I put my A sheet format within the page limits?

I can test for problems but I need to get to that maybe 12 hours from now…

Maybe your homebrew template isn’t aligned properly with the page limits.

OK what am I doing worng? Can anyone make a template that somehow aligns with the page limits? My .png and .wks files are posted above, or make your own rectangle.

Hard to believe I am the only one who has tried this…recently?

I have not done this for > 1 year, but I will attempt to file a bug report in 12 hours or so if nobody can figure this out.

I’ve never bothered to make my own title block. Use the Kicad one.
If the page is getting congested I will change paper size. Usually start with A4, mostly end up on A3, a couple of times been to A2.
The Schematic paper size has no bearing on what comes out of the printer, if you are into printing schematics, except the symbols are pretty small if Schematic is on an A2 sheet and you print to an A4 sheet.

Copy / paste I found useful for duplicating parts of one project into another.

example:
pagelayout_bobz_v03.kicad_wks (22.6 KB)

You have to adapt the width/height of both rectangles on the bottom right side to your needs.

Looked also at your dws-file. Your imported shape was false positioned.
modified:
Bobs_A_Sheet_03_modified.kicad_wks (32.6 KB)
Note that with your solution the dws-file is only working with one page-size, your original choosen size “A”.
With the “imported shape” you completely loose the option to flexible adapt the working sheet to different page sizes.

Not quite accurate. The schematic paper size is noted in the PDF that is generated. It so happens that most printing setups when say given an A5 PDF for an A4 printer, will automatically do the sensible thing and scale to fit, rather than printing on ¼ of the sheet.

The Schematic paper size has no bearing on what comes out of the printer

That’s not true. I just checked to be sure with my statement. (with virtual pdf printer driver). The printout only includes the area of the defined page-size. Every item outside of the choosen pagesize (so outside of the white rectangle in the pictures above) is not printed.

Well, I forgot about that. Not much into printing.

I checked my printer. It asks me if I want the output scaled to fit. I have a polite printer.

Hi @mf_ibfeew ,
Sorry, my comment was about the Kicad defined sheet sizes. I should have been more specific. It is getting past my bed time. I’d better rest my fingers before I make any more blunders. :upside_down_face:

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Dum…de…dum…de…dum…

I had not previously noticed that there is a drawing sheet editor… :frowning:

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Dude! You need to look around when partying! :sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile:

I looked into this thread a moment ago and reading all the posts I was thinking that at the end I will cite a sentence from first post and ask why you didn’t just edit sheet with sheet editor.
When I considering using KiCad first what I have done was checking how to get documentation files I need and the second was to edit my sheet for schematic and to delete sheet from PCB editor. With this second task I had a problem (KiCad V4, don’t know how with V7) as when I edited sheet to be empty then default sheet was used and when I deleted sheet definition file also the default sheet was used. I ended with small cross at 0,0 position. During last 6 years I was writing about it several times. You should have seen it.

Hi, Piotr

It would be very unlikely for me to remember something which another forum member wrote a year ago. This is especially true if I did not find the the topic to be particularly interesting at the time. I often forget what I did two weeks ago. I look at a perfectly good working design I did a year ago and think “How does that work?”

Before my initial post I did search the FAQ about schematic sheets and found nothing I was looking for. When I typed my topic, the forum auto-recommended posts based upon similar words but I did not find that any of those were helpful.

Clearly the drawing sheet editor is so obvious that nobody needs help with it. But I had not noticed that it existed… :frowning:

It’s on the front page of the project launcher.

Now, does anybody know where I can find a current capacity calculator tool? :wink: