Negated signal names font issue

I am using a different font than the default kicad one.

The negation line is part of the font or is kicad placing it ?
How can I lower it a little ?

Does this thread help at all ?

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I tried different fonts (as the solution to that thread seems to be) but I don’t like them.

Probably the margin used by kicad is taken from the font… it would be nice to put some correction factor to it (something like shrinking percentage.)

Or maybe I could edit the font itself with some tool.

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Read that thread again.
It also suggests to change the font size, and making the font just a little bit smaller will be hardly noticeable, while it also lowers the bar.

You can also set the default in Schematic Editor / File / Schematic Setup / General / Formatting / Default text size, and for an existing project you can change text properties with Schematic Editor / Edit / Edit Text & Graphics Properties. I do recommend to make a backup before you start experimenting with the last option, as it can potentially change lots of things if you’re not careful.

Uh?

Reducing font size is “a different font”, and it is even worse than changing font type.

Not a solution.

Whatever a developer tries to do with font handling, it goes wrong. It’s impossible to find a heuristic which works everywhere. Different fonts are different, they have different features, and you just can’t find a lowest common denominator solutions for all problems caused by them. For example, see how the default font looks like for me:

image

The negation line is better than with your font – except with high characters. Do I have to use non-7bit-ascii characters? No, but this shows that it’s pretty much impossible to please everyone for all use cases.

(If your font is an outline font and not like the kicad font which is stroke based.)

Isn’t it what parameters and options are for ? Duh.

I tried to fiddle around with ttf editor and tried every different spacing, ascend and descend possible, but seems to me that kicad uses a different algorithm for its own font and uses a fixed distance to draw the line for ttf fonts, the distance is only function of the font size you use in the label.

My simple request would be adding a simple offset parameter for the negation line when using ttf fonts.

This way you would be happy using a smaller font putting the line over your accents and I would be happy to use a bigger font with no accents and a clear visible negation line over them.

It is not that hard to code, I know that.

What is the point of choosing your own font if a simple label is not usable ?

These kind of softwares are full of nuances and fine tuning parameters and for a fundamental thing (at least schematic-wise) we are at a loss on what to do ? No way.

So create a wishist item for this on the bug tracker.
I don’t think that the developers want to turn the schematic editor into a tool with the complexity of a true desktop publishing program like Scribus

So why they put user fonts available? Come on.

I don’t understand why in this thread everyone is on defense.

Because you are on offence.

You see that as attacking?!

What are you a fanboy? I am just trying to help make a better product to use professionally.

Are you on the developer team?

Please elaborate.

I am kind of offended by this way of treating people.

I see that you created a feature request for this in GitLab, so I think we can move on from this thread.

User fonts are a new feature, primarily intended for the PCB initially, and primarily to help people who are moving from other EDA packages to get “exact imports” of their boards, and to help people use KiCad who speak languages with non-Latin characters. Because it is a new feature, there are still plenty of things that could be improved about it. We tend to “start small” with new features where possible, rather than e.g. waiting to introduce font support until every possible font customization is present.

@davidsrsb is right, KiCad will never have as many font options as MS Word or Photoshop or tools like that, but I think this specific request is reasonable as it makes labels less legible in some situations.

Personally, while I think this is reasonable, I think it’s also not very important. It’s easy to choose not to use custom fonts, since if you are using Latin characters it is mostly an aesthetic choice rather than something out of necessity. It’s also easy to choose not to use overbars: you can indicate negated signals in other ways, for example RESETn instead of RESET with an overbar. And despite what you said, it’s also easy to work around this problem by changing the font size.

4 Likes

Thank you for the clarification.

I hope this simple feature will be added soon, because in my opinion it is little small work for a big improvement.

Nobody is asking for publishing software features here.

I just like narrow fonts for space economy on the sheet,
same for the overline that makes things more readable.

I am baffled at the kind of replies I have been receiving,
it’s like I hit a nerve here.

I feel pretty much the same as eelik.

After this remark:

I decided to not respond to this thread anymore.
However, I also quite often write posts which are regarded as far more negative then intended, so at least I sort of recognize the problem.

Yeah, I had the best intentions in the world to make the product a better one, turns out I am in the wrong place.

This is a fan forum where people get offended if you show a flaw in the software and just hope it will be fixed.

My bad, I am out.

No.
People get offended if you treat them as idiots for wanting to provide a workaround.

If you want to make KiCad better, then create an issue for this on gitlab.

I think fanboys get offended too easily.

If a workaround is not enough for me what should I do ?

I am not stating “is not a solution” meaning they said an idiotic thing, it’s just that is not enough a solution for me.

If people get offended for these kind of things this is not the place for me, I do electronics for a living I am not interested in social chatting and people who feel they are idiots because I have my needs from the software. What is this? a church ?

I came to the conclusion that the easiest option is to point to another program with a question, can you do this?)) because, for example, Altium is used by 90 percent and 10 by kikad)))

Here we go again with another bitter reply.

Hey chill out, I am donating IF kicad supports me in making money.

Are you an hobbist?

the second option is to use fonts according to the standard, for example, iso or gost, at least they should work like the ipc standard, then there will be fewer questions