Issue with Footprint Text in KiCad 6.0.5

[ccx004]

I have a small circuit that was created with an earlier version of KiCad (5.1.9). The PCB has been laid out with the 5.1.9 version as well and has been fabricated. However, I have to make some changes I’ve done that with KiCad 6.0.5. It has all worked fine with the following exception. In Pcbnew, each component shows a footprint reference and a footprint text. Double clicking on each shows a property dialog which shows that they are not visible even though they are visible. Checking the “visible” tick box does not seem to have any effect. The one which is described as “Footprint Reference” is described as being in the “F.Silkscreen” layer and the one which is described as “Footprint Text” is in the “F.Fab” layer. That one has a text value of “${REFERENCE}”. If I hide the “F.Silkscreen” layer the “Footprint Reference” is hidden as expected. If I hide the “F.Fab” some values such as component values become hidden but not the “Footprint Text” which is supposedly in that layer. I can manually delete the “Footprint Text” for each component but I wondered first if there is a way to delete all of them in one operation and second if this is a bug that should be reported somewhere. I have searched every property dialog I can find but I haven’t found anything that might be able to hide or delete the “Footprint Text” texts.

[jmk]

Hello and welcome @ccx004

My properties shows three lines for footprints taken from Kicad libraries.
The third line doesn’t exist for my personal libraries.

The ${REFERENCE} is tied to the REF**. It needs to be un-ticked separately for each footprint.
From memory, it has always been the case, but I stand to be corrected.

The REF** and Value can be “bulk” toggled on and off with the Appearance Manager on RHS of the PCB Editor

I hope this helps.

[ccx004]

Hi JMK,

That’s great thanks. That worked for most of the components but oddly enough didn’t for others. Just out of curiosity I renamed the PCB file and created a new one. With that one everything worked as expected but with the one imported from KiCad 5 I get these strange results. Another odd results is that for some components toggling the “Visible” tick box to off hides the “footprint text” but for others it doesn’t and I don’t mean different types of components. For example, it works for R1 but doesn’t for R2 even though both are using the same library link (Resistor_THT:R_Axial_DIN0207_L6.3mm_D2.5mm_P7.62mm_Horizontal).

I suspect it is related to the fact that the PCB was imported from KiCad 5 and it was the first “proper” PCB I created so it may have mistakes of some kind in it as well.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions. As it happens I didn’t know about the Appearance Manager so that was useful information as well.

Best wishes…
Colin