Global change footprint properites

Layout Footprints
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I hereby certify that I am not simply asking someone else to design a footprint for me.

This is an auto-generated message that is in place on the “footprints” section of the KiCad.info forum. If I remove it and ask for a footprint to be designed anyway, I understand that I will be subject to forum members telling me to go design my own footprint or referring me to a 3rd party footprint site.

Hey All,

Newbie to this forum, but have been using KiCad ver 6.0 for a few years.

One thing I find annoying when laying out a pcb, is all the un-nescasary (to me) text that follows around with the footprint, and clutters up the screen when placing components.

By default, it seem that common parts like resistors and caps show:
Reference Designator on the F. Silkscreen layer (R1)
Value on the F.Fab layer (10K)
${REFERENCE} on the F. Fab layer (R1)

I find myself opening the Footprint Properties of each component, and deselecting all but the silkscreen which I then relocate to the center of the footprint, very time consuming.

Is there any way to globally set the footprint properties??

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Can’t you simply turn off the layers that the offending text in on ?

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For something like a resistor I just do one and then keep copying it. But, it’s been awhile since I’ve had time to do any circuit design. :frowning:

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yep, sometimes it takes someone else to point out the obvious

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Is there any way to globally set the footprint properties?

No.

Additionally to turn off the layers you may also turn off the text visibility in the appearance panel–>objects tab.

If you have found a good working setup (layers+objects tab settings) you should save that as user defined Preset.

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Yes! And, it’s simple…

Know that most Footprints, by default, have certain Text-Fields turned on to show (thus, they do Not have the word “hide”.) Not all Footprints have all of the Text-Fields and some have additional ones… depends on who created the Footprint.

That said, you can do Individual and/or All of the Footprints on a particular PCB. And, you can do them in a Bulk way, including all of the Footprints in a full library.

Doing them in a Bulk way can be risky if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Thus, I demo doing it on a Specific PCB that I select to do it for.
You can use any Text-Editor to do it (they all have Search and Replace).

I’m using my homemade Python-App to do it (instead of Text-Editor). However, I have the text Editor Open to show the word ‘hide’.

For this Demo, I first set the Text-Field ‘Visibility’ to not show. The field is either ‘blank’ or has the word ‘hide’ so, I wanted it with that word ‘hide’ to appear for the video.

In video, I replaced ‘hide’ with an empty field. After replacing it, I show ‘hide’ is missing from the PCB file. And, thusly the Text reappears on the PCB.

Try it out for yourself on a simple PCB with a couple of Footprints…

Note about what to Select & Replace… There are other items that can be Hidden so, it’s important to select the one’s of interest. You can do that by selecting enough of the Text that includes stuff that is different than, or, that other’s don’t contain…

That’s where some Practice play’s a role…

Good Luck!

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I switched the Solution to point directly to RaptorUK’s answer, rather than your reply to their answer.

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