Are there any tutorials on how to Print or Plot a PCB layout to a printer.
I have a Brother HL-L2375DW Mono Laser printer and a Brother MFC-L8690CDW Colour Laser printer.
I’m running KiCad 8.0.8 on Windows 11.
I can get printouts but they are not to any scale (actually slightly less than 1 to 1).
I can select layers and drill files but I cannot adjust any scaling in Print or Plot.
In Print I have set Scale to Fit to page but that makes no difference.
In Plot I cannot change the Scaling at all (Not highlighted).
I make ALL of my stuff on Perfboard and when I lay out a PCB I use a 0.1 inch grid system and route to that. I want to print at say 200% so that I can actually see the layout. It’s currently way to small for my old eyes. Can’t afford PCB’s as I am retired and living on a pension. My hobby keeps the grey matter going in it’s old age!!!
Thanks for any help
Mike
Have you tried plotting to PDF (1:1) then printing the PDF 1:2 (200%) on your printer ?
I just tried it . . . looks pretty much spot on for me.
Scale to fit does actually scale the print to whatever the system decides. Switch that option off and it should work.
Let me see … Yes, does work. (Brother HL-L3270…, MacOS).
Selected 1:1. And in the print dialog, there is an option in the lower left “Page setup”. Check that one to!
And I was shocked how small the board is I designed. 
To make printed documentation (we ignore scale in documentation - the bigger picture the easier to see) I plot to SVG. I do it with ‘Plot drawing sheet’ switched off to get only PCB in output file.
Then using Inkscape I am limiting a sheet size to contain only my PCB and then such svg files we insert int LibreOffice Writer document containing our documentation.
My example you can see in:
OMG. This does not look good at all.
I have been using KiCad for quite a while now (previously DipTrace user), and find that it is an excellent package with plenty of help out there from members.
DipTrace has a really good Print/Plot function whereby in the Print Preview you can select which Layers you want, the Scale, Colour or B&W and also move the drawing around the page before printing.
Is there no way that KiCad can be made to do similar things?
If not how does one go about requesting such a function.
I know that I am not the only one to find that this is an issue with KiCad.
However I would like to take this opportunity to thank ALL of those developers out there who freely give there time to make KiCad such a good product.
Thanks again guys.
Mike
When I was using perfboard (if I never use one again it’ll be too soon), I solved the problem of matching the layout to the board a different way.
I put a co-ordinate system on the layout, letters one direction, numbers they other orthogonal direction. In fact the board already had pre-printed coordinates on the edge which was handy. Then I printed the layout to fit the paper maximising magnification. To locate a hole I would use coordinates, e.g. G16.
So I don’t see why you have to use 1:2 or indeed any fixed factor.
in v7, Plotting PCB has Scale-Setting for HPGL and Postscript. I imagine v8 and v9 are about the same.
When I need to Scale a Print/Plot, I just select Print or Plot.
If selecting Print, the panel opens and has three-Scaling options (1:1, Fit-to-page, Custom ) upon clicking Print, my system’s Print panel opens and has Scale options, as it does with anything I need to print.
If selecting Plot, it Plots the selected ‘File-Type’ - I set type to PDF. Then, I open the PDF and Print; the system’s Print panel opens with Scaling option.
This is Kicad’s Print panel that opens on my Mac…
You can create bug reports and feature requests on gitlab. It’s unlikely that anyone is going to put very much effort in this soon, but making a better feature request helps. If you make such a feature request, you can add a scheenshot of both the KiCad and the Diptrace print dialog, point out some differences and missing functions in the KiCad version.
There is! At least apart from moving the drawing around. For that you have to move the pcb in the pcb editor.
There’s a plugin called Board2Pdf, give it a try. It’s available in the PCM.
After installing you get a new icon in the toolbar in the PCB Editor.
Each template will result in a page in the pdf. Each template can contain any number of layers and can be scaled in a few different ways. Each layer can have any color, as well as some other settings.
If you want to print to paper, just create a pdf first and print it with any pdf viewer.
Didn’t know about this one. I will certainly take a look, thanks!
This is much better than it was in KiCad V5.
I wanted to have black element rectangles and references on gray copper. When I changed colors to get this plotted than there were no simple way to get back to working colors.
My solution was to plot each layer separately and set colors (gray) and mix them back with Inkcsape.
Later you were able to have several color sets to easy get back but layer printing order was fixed. What worked well for top PCB view didn’t worked for bottom so I stayed with my method.
Since V8 I am able to get my pictures directly from KiCad (both for top and bottom). The only problem left is output sheet size setting I have described in this Feature request. Now I use Inkscape to use there 3 hotkeys.