I just switched to KiCAD 9, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to generate a Gerber with only values or only references. Previously on V8, I would go to “Fabrication Outputs” and then just check the values/references button depending on which I wanted to plot.
I can’t find this option on the plot dialog, or looking through the settings. Nor does it seem to follow what I have selected in the appearance side pane. So am I just stuck? Currently, my gerber has both references and values overlapping and is illegible. What am I missing here?
Your question is missing a exact description which values / references from which layers you want on which gerber output. Even better would be a example project (to attach a project archive you have to promote yourself from “new forum user” to “basic user” level: see FAQ: New Member Information)
My footprints have “F.Silkscreen” layers with a Val and Ref text field. I can toggle these in the regular PCB Editor via the Appearance->Objects sidebar by clicking the eye next to “Values” and “References” (as with KiCAD 8). And in the KiCAD 8 Gerber plot dialog, there were two checkboxes: “Plot footprint values” and “Plot footprint text” which would do the same thing when plotting. But in KiCAD 9 these checkboxes are missing and there’s nothing that looks similar. So it almost seems like the feature was deprecated (or hopefully just moved), rather than this being a bug. In my case I prefer to populate my layouts with values printed, but sometimes I have layouts where I only want references. And I never want both.
I don’t think I’m doing anything novel here at all, I’m not an advanced user. But if it helps I can try to promote myself and add a project.
With reference + value on the same (silkscreen) layer you are right, your old workflow will not work.
I don’t know if the removal of the 5 checkboxes regarding ref/value was intentional or an oversight. You may open a gitlab issue regarding the checkboxes, then we will get a answer from the programmers.
I filed a bug here and it’s closed as working. The functionality is available but it’s a bit buried as some of the tools have moved around over different KiCAD versions.
For anyone finding this post, here’s how to accomplish it:
On the PCB Editor, go to Edit → Edit Text and Graphics Properties.
Select either “Reference designators” or “Values” and then uncheck “Visible” depending upon which you want to suppress.
Click “Apply and Close”.
Plot the gerber as normal.
This generated the gerber I want.
For the record I found this confusing - I figured this type of thing would be a “Board Setup” operation (where there’s no indication you can do this). Nor is it in preferences. It’s not clear up front whether this is suppressing just the rendering in the tool or would also suppress for export. It’s also a conflicting way to "toggle"things in the editor compared to the little eyeball indicator - once you suppress in this way, you can’t use the eyeball indicator to quickly flip back and forth. But I’m a noob and perhaps the function of the different configuration windows is obvious to someone with more experience.