This question applies to the SCHEMATIC but could also be valid for the PCB: is it possible to change the dimensions of a symbol (or a PCB footprint) in one fell swoop without having to recreate it from scratch? Like the Autocad SCALE command: I open an existing symbol, save it with a new name and modify it by instantly DOUBLEING ALL dimensions etc. (in practice, it is double the size or other scaling factor).
No.
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You can buy a bigger monitor, or print the schematic on A2 instead of A4.
But as far as I know there is no scaling feature at all for KiCad symbols.
What is the intended endgoal for wanting to scale symbols? This may be an XY Problem.
Yes, of course, you can always order double sized components for double sized footprints!
(Insert irony smiley here)
I have used the plugin âTransform itâ from the âPlugins managerâ its a third party tool and it worked well for me in 7.0.11and scales thing as you describe but I have not used it yet in 8.0.0 but it installed ok
I just installed version 7.0 (which still coexists with 5.0) and for now I wonât make the switch to 8. Where can I find this additional plugin? And how do you install it then? A thousand thanks
It can be found using the âPlugin and Content Managerâ at the bottom of Kicad opening screen.
Once there there you will see a column marked âPlugins (47)â 47 being the current count, scroll down to âTransform Itâ and hit install this then puts the app into âPendingâ at this point select âApply Pending changesâ and the app will be added to your total and will be waiting for you in âPCB Editorâ
If youâre printing and finding that a small circuit has too much blank space around it, what you can do is reduce the paper size in Page Setup. I often go down to A5 for my circuits. When the PDF is printed with âfit to pageâ, the schematic and symbols will get enlarged on A4 paper.
In different words, that is sort of my angle. The symbols are too small relative to what? For the most part the schematic diagram is only symbols and wires. I tend to use 20-30 mil text in my schematics (not 50 mil) and I tend to crowd the symbols closer together than other people tend to do.
I have been using LTSpice a lot in my work. A pet peeve is that my colleagues tend to spread their schematics out very wide so that if you grab an image and paste that into another document, the symbols and text are too small to read easily if at all.
By placing the symbols closer together now the overall schematic is smaller relative to the size of symbols and text, and (up to a point) this can make the schematic easier to read because they appear larger when the schematic fits a given page size.
What is wrong with this logic?
For me there are no problems, I have an HP A3 printer and an HP plotter, so I print in the format I want and at the size I choose. However, one of my clients has to use the PDF printed in A3 (but we also tried in A4) and since he doesnât have my peripherals, he prints on A4 and then enlarges with the photocopier (donât laughâŚ): there is a better method, since he has vision problems?
But is this plugin safe that also works for the schematic? I need to change/resize the electrical symbols, not the PCB footprints
Because I installed this plugin as you say, but then when I open any electrical diagram I canât find it anywhere (I donât know how to open it) and even in the symbol editor it doesnât let me change the dimensions as I would like
A few years ago I bought a 3840x2160 pixel monitor with a diagonal of 107cm, and the experience is all out positive. Even though Iâm starting to make use of reading glasses some times (a modest +1) to read small print, I have no vision trouble with my monitor. When I put on my reading glasses and look at my monitor, I can just see individual pixels and jagged edges on slanted lines, but without reading glasses, the fringes just blend in and text is just âsharp and crispâ.
For KiCad, increasing size of symbols (relative to what?) is very unlikely to be of interest of developers (which are still a scarce resource for the KiCad project). After all, All symbols are in vectorized format and can be zoomed to nearly any size you wish. Zoom range in KiCad is for me to less than a pixel for a resistor, to 68cm from pin to pin. ( which is: 680/(3*2.54) = 89.238 time ânormal sizeâ).
Well, I wonât laugh, but it still is a bit silly. When I was young I had some homework assignments for CAD drawings. All my fellow students did the paper and pencil thing but I made the drawings on my PC, then printed it out on 8 sheets of A4 paper and glued them together to A1 size (Minus the 8mm or so overlap for gluing). There is plenty of software which can help with doing that. Iâve even used software in which you can just type in on how many pages you want a picture printed, and it stretches it to foll that amount of pages and then prints out a stack of pages. You only have to figure that out once, and then you can skip the photocopier for the rest of your life.
I need to change/resize the electrical symbols, not the PCB footprints
This is contrary to your opening posts, where you asked to scale symbols and footprints.
The mentioned plugin is suited for use in the pcb editor (maybe also in the footprint editor).
There is no SCALE command for the schematic editor/symbol editor.
Sorry, I automatically thought of Logoâs and designs on the PCB that you have designed but wished you had made them larger. It wont show up because it wonât work on a schematic (I believe) and I donât understand why you would want to increase the size of symbols as you can print or read the schematic at any size you want. Please accept my apologies
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