The board is currently bigger than the orange outline with the 1,2,3,4,5 and A,B,C,D, columns. How do I extend the size of the board outline?
Additionally, I use the Mac OS version of Kicad, I constantly try to ‘scroll’ around the page using my Mac Magic Mouse 2. This always ends up zooming me in at crazy speeds. Is there a hotkey for ‘scroll by mouse movement’, or perhaps is there a way I can make the magic mouse touch left / right scroll my page instead of controlling zoom?
(I’m on Windows, so your User Interface may be a little different.)
In the ribbon bar at the top of the EESchema window, click on “File” then select “Page Settings” from the drop-down menu. A dialog box should open up. Use it to set the “paper size” (i.e., the size of your drawing area) as well as enter some information that will be displayed in the Title Block. Don’t worry too much about matching the dimensions of your drawing area to the size of your printer’s paper - When you print the drawing (either printed to real paper, or printed to an electronic file format such as *.pdf or *.ps) you can scale the size of the printed image to match the physical size of the media.
Depending on where in KiCAD you are looking, or who you are talking to, or what program you are using, that is called the “sheet border”, “sheet reference”, “drawing outline”, “format border”, “page frame” or similar term.
After you are acquainted with KiCAD you may want to customize the sheet reference. You do this with the “Worksheet Layout Editor”, invoked from the main KiCAD shell.
Dale
p.s. - In KiCAD’s standard vocabulary, your graphic image shows a portion of a “schematic”, not a “board”. For future reference, a “symbol” and a “footprint” are also distinctly different items. While the KiCAD terminology is not always consistent, making an effort to use the commonly accepted vocabulary will generally get you better quality help, and in less time.
By now you probably found:
EEschem -> File -> Page Settings.
It look’s like you are setting yourself up for a lot of repetitive work.
I am certain you want to get to know the “block” functionality.
1). Draw some schematic components and wires.
2). Drag a rectangle around it by holding down [LMB]. You have now created a “block”.
3). Default action is to move the block, But:
4). Press Right Mouse Button for more options.
5). Select “Copy Block” and you will make a copy of the block.
6). Move Mouse to where you want to place your block and press [LMB].
You can also use this technique if you want to connect for example a lot of wires between 2 connectors. Start with drawing a few wires. Then Block Copy to double their number, Repeat to double the number again. If you have too much wires in the end you can easily delete those of course.
There is a better way. You can work with “hierarchical sheets”, but expaining that is too much for a forum like this.
If he truly has repeated circuits, a multiple installation of the same hierarchical sheet might be the better choice. If he then later finds an error he only needs to fix it once. This is one of the projects where i use that feature a lot
Yeah, I know, already added that to my post. But this is OP’s first schematic in KiCad and he has enough new things on his mind. With Hierarchical sheets you get the whole labelling thing. I’m also not sure if hierarchical sheets are a good idea here. The circuit seems to be a video distribution thingie where each SCART connector has a chip, but I don’t know how many inernal connectons there are from those chips to the rest of the circuit.
For a beginner a suggestion for a simple block copy seems better advice. It is a no-brainer which saves him some time immediately and will sparkle a slight infatuation.
Later it will turn into full blown love if he discovers all the other gems.
Thank you. What about my question around the scrolling:
Additionally, I use the Mac OS version of Kicad, I constantly try to ‘scroll’ around the page using my Mac Magic Mouse 2. This always ends up zooming me in at crazy speeds. Is there a hotkey for ‘scroll by mouse movement’, or perhaps is there a way I can make the magic mouse touch left / right scroll my page instead of controlling zoom?
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