How do you remove reference text that is in the silkscreen layer? I had not had my coffee yet and clicked on a wrong Footprint and it got inserted. I can delete almost all of the Footprint although the REF** and Footprint name can not be deleted. I tried moving it to a ‘user’ layer, but still could not delete.
I did search for just this, all that shows up is marking it ‘hidden’.
Yes, I suppose that marking it hidden works, but I like keeping stuff clean and tidy.
The point of the reference text is not just to keep it visible somewhere, but also to identify the component for all parties involved and tie it to a schematic symbol. Therefore it would be wrong to remove it completely. It don’t think “clean and tidy” is a good enough reason to make that possible.
eelik: Thanks for the reply. The component ( footprint ) does not need to be identified as it was deleted from the schematic. Just trying to clean stuff up.
Do you mean you first had a symbol + footprint combination in the design but removed the symbol and wanted to still keep the footprint in the layout? I would argue that keeping the Reference placeholder is still better than removing it completely. It shows at once that the footprint isn’t tied to a symbol, and you can hide it from the PCB.
If I understand correctly what you did: you tried to remove footprint from a layout (board) by opening the footprint and editing it to non-existence. Instead, you should simply delete the footprint from the layout.
Not quite. Selecting via cursor window and then hitting delete removes most of the footprint. REF** and Footprint name are still there and I can not remove. Where did I go sideways?
I can, although I wonder if that is really needed as I started with a footprint as I was size checking because I do not have much real estate to work with so I thought I would try and see what would and would not fit. Footprint is the only thing there. Well, REF** and name. Sure, can delete the whole project; but what happens in the future when I insert something wrong on something that is further along that this is? I mean sh.t happens especially with me.
Ahh, OK. If you added a footprint to a layout and then want to delete it, you should not open the footprint in the Footprint Editor to delete it. You should select the footprint in the layout so that it is highlighted and then simply delete it (press Del or use the Right Mouse Button menu a.k.a. context menu → Delete).
There’s one catch. When you have already edited the footprint so that it has nothing but the reference and the value, it’s difficult to select the footprint. You have to click the anchor of the footprint on the board. It’s the small plus mark in the anchor (internal origin point) of the footprint. Then the whole footprint is selected.
All: Sorry for the delay, had to go back out into the Train Cave as that machine is not VNC-able…yet. Somebody said food, so I came in the house and asked my question. That worked, we are all good now. Sorry to take up your time. Sometimes ima sooo St00pid!
Next, opening the file with text editor…
to pedro.