Origin & Axes - will changing these have consequences later in the design?

The default Origin & Axes have the origin in the upper left corner of the PCB.
I don’t like that. I’d like to have the origin in the lower left corner, and increasing X/Y coordinates going right/up.

Changing this is easy, but I cannot foresee the scope of doing it.
Will this give me problems later in the layout process? (eg, Gerbers, production etc.?)

Thanks.

No.

The Origins and Axes settings apply only to what the user sees on the screen. They do not change anything in the board files.

The first thing I need is to set the prefs so positive-Y is up:

Then I always, always set the drill origin to lower-left corner of pcb (not really used until you generate fab drill stuff at the end). The grid origin I put at either lower-left corner of the board, or sometimes the center of the board – you can change it anytime as needed.

And sometimes the lower-left corner is off the pcb:

Actually they do change the values in the CPL file if you are going for PCB assembly. But since the assembler will use relative references to the board it all works out.

Setting the Drill/Place origin can affect the manufacturing files, but changing the Origins & Axes display configuration does not.

I’m intimately familiar with this, as I’m the one who proposed and implemented this feature.

Yes, I remember reading about this somewhere on the Kicad site or here; couldn’t find the comment so settled for one word. :slightly_smiling_face:

Super. Thanks everyone.

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