When I print PCB masks from kicad to printer (A4 sheets), scaling is good. When I print from kicad to PDF file, then PCB mask scaling is out by about 5%. This issue has only occurred in kicad V9.0.1 (the version I am currently using). I created a cct design last February using a different version of kicad (I’m not sure what version, OS upgrade since then). I had no scaling problem with this PDF produced file (and any prior kicad versions). I’ve checked my PDF viewer (altril). It’s not faulty. So fault seems to be in kicad. I’ve checked all the print and page settings in kicad. I play with the scale feature, and get the PCB length correct, but the width is out. So not only out by scale, but also by aspect. I’m at loss want to do. I want to produce PDF files, so that I can use the high quality laser printers at my work. My home printer is cheap and the masks are not as opaque as work’s high end printers. My design has lots of 15 mil tracks, so the mask needs to be the best. I’m an old school designer: Lightbox, developer, etchant etc. Any help/tips appreciated.
Can you try updating to 9.0.2 and see if this fixes it? I vaguely remember someone else having this problem and it being already fixed
Hello Mineotopia. Thanks for the tip. This issue is not kicad. It is my operating system distribution that’s at fault. I downloaded V8.0.0, V9.0.0 and master source code from the gitlab site. They all had the same fault. Looking at the source code, and the way kicad prints the diagrams, it’s the system print service display manager library that is the cause. After this, I then printed Post Script files instead of PDF files. The PS files print perfect scale and aspect. I should have done that first instance !. Oh well. My OS is: Linux Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS. I installed it a few months back.
A suggestion for the kicad team: Have kicad not reject a project that has been created using a newer kicad version. kicad should attempt to load it. For whatever reason, somebody develops a cct on latest version, and they can’t do something due to a bug, then they have the option of trying a version that worked previously etc. The fields in the project (text editable files) shouldn’t radically change from version to version right ?. Then why not try to load it ?. If the user gets a dog’s breakfast, then at least they’re not going to die wondering.
PS/ I found a solution. I save my art as gerber files, then convert these files to PDF using a utility called “gerbv”. It is installed using the command “apt install gerbv” on a debian/ubuntu based systems. Works a treat 
I’m not able to find where my original fault is. Ghostscript library and command tools seems to be the location of the fault, but this library is ancient and stable. Nobody has reported this issue with this library. Anyway, the above utility works, so time to forget about it, and move on.