How to disable interactive PDF

[jerabj]

Hi,

is there a way to disable interactive PDF features and generate just a simple searchable PDF like in the 6.x version? The main reason is that the size of the interactive PDF is too large for complex boards and it is hard to copy&search references.

Thank you,
Jan

[mf_ibfeew]

is there a way to disable interactive PDF features and generate just a simple searchable PDF

For which editor (schematic or board)? Your current kicad-version?

For v7.0.x: No
For v7.99 (nightly development version):

• for schematic editor: no
• for plotting the board: yes, there are two new GUI-options added: Generate property popups for front/back footprints
• this was introduced as fix for issue Feature request: Ability to not add menus to all footprints when plotting to PDF (#14450) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab
• this will most probably not be backported to v7.0.x, as it’s a new feature
• so will be available with the next big stable release v8 next year

[jerabj]

Ideally for the python API for the board editor in the 7.0.x version. I assume that the 7.99 and 7.0.x versions are not backward compatible?

Thank you

[mf_ibfeew]

Ideally for the python API for the board editor in the 7.0.x version

in this case you are out of luck.

I assume that the 7.99 and 7.0.x versions are not backward compatible?

yes.
But forwarded compatibility is planned and should work. So if you really need these features you could:

• install v7 and v7.99 in parallel
• work with v7.
• After completing the board files load the board with v7.99
• than plot from v7.99
• be sure to not save with the v7.99 version (as said no backward-compatibility)

[jerabj]

Yes, got it, thank you anyway.

[davidsrsb]

This is horrible, there are situations where i share PDFs and don’t want some of this information exposed

[maui]

it seems a possible workaround is to use pyPDF2 to remove all comments and annotations

How to remove annotations in pdf in Python 3

but it is still a feature needed inside kicad pcbnew…

[mf_ibfeew]

Additional to my workaround above (and the solution from @maui) there is the possibility to use the “Print” function and use a virtual pdf-printer driver.

[davidsrsb]

In the past “Print” has created artifacts compared with “Plot”.
Passing the KiCad pdf output through a 3rd part program to flatten the pdf is also adding a level of possible errors.
Changing the behaviour so drastically in V7, without serious discussion was a big mistake.
Apart from the size and exposed fields, the pdf can be modified by the viewer