Is there an effective way to select or eliminate what will be printed? Examples: I drew a shield, with its dimensions on the ECO2 layer. When I tried to print it (including the frame and title block) it adds the Edge Cuts layer even though it is turned off.
Tried to print a drill drawing, and it will not print drills unless one of the copper layers is turned on. Not what I need.
Another printing issue - I’d like to be able to select a small portion of a layout, perhaps with a bounding box, and make a pdf of that.
Eagle has dedicated copper layers like KiCad. It also has certain paired layers. So does KiCad. After that, Eagle allows the user to rename the other layers and use them for whatever you want. You can also add additional layers as needed. Then, durring the gerber creation phase, you can add any layer you want to a gerber file. Thus it is easy to draw a graphic across two dissimilar nets to connect them together as may be needed.
I’m not a fan of Eagle; it’s what I was using beffore KiCad, which IMHO is much superior.
Thank you, jos. This worked perfectly - for a single layer, such as my shield drawing. BUT - only for a single layer. The option to print all layers on a single page exists in the print function, but not in the plot function. Can’t plot F.cu, Edge.cuts, and F. CrtYd in the same pdf file. Suggestions?
In the print dialog you can zoom. Panning (zooming to a certain portion) is possible in a roundabout way. Plot doesn’t allow zooming or combining layers, print does.
Here’s the print dialog from 5.1. Why do you say it adds the edge cuts layer? If it does while it’s turned off, it’s a bug. Works for me.
How do you zoom? Adjusting the scale? I have done that before. Trying to focus on a specific area might be tricky, but I won’t know without trying it.
It does add the edge cuts layer when trying to plot my shield drawing. Turning it off in pcbnew doesn’t help. Unselecting it in the plot dialog doesn’t work. I think it’s a bug. When I wanted to send a plot of the whole board to the rest of my group, consisting of top copper and F.CrtYd, it insists on showing all the vias, even though they are turned off. The only vias on this board are stitches between the ground plane on layers F.cu and B.cu. Trying to print a drill drawing showing just the drills and the edge cuts didn’t work when I tried it in print mode; I haven’t yet tried it in plot mode.
There seems to be “Exclude PCB edge layer” option below the layer choice boxes. It’s a bit wierd because there’s already that layer amongst other which can be selected/deselected.
If you want to print / plot specific details, or want to make a .pdf of it, then make it a 2 step process. First plot to .svg (or other format you’re comfortable with) and load the drawing into a drawing program. Then do some post processing before you print it or make a .pdf.
