Hi everyone,
I did a KiCad project in v4.x some years ago. Now, I need to upgrade/enhance some project features. I would of course like to use the latest KiCad version.
If I wanted to migrate to v8.x, what would be the better way, to jump from v4.x to v8.x or take the tedious way of migrating from v4 to v5 to V6 and so on?
Any advice/Comment would be most welcome.
Thanks and best regards
Make backups of everything first.
In theory 4.x to 8.x is supported. In practice, very few people do this large a jump so there may be issues. Make sure to use 8.0.6 – earlier versions of 8.0 have a known bug when handling V5 and earlier designs. If you run into problems, going 4.x to 5.1 and then 5.1 to 8.0.6 should work.
Don’t make it more difficult for yourself then necessary. Indeed first make sure you have backups, and then you’re free to try things out with a copy of your project. I would make a straight jump from V4 to V8.0.6 with no intermediate steps. Difficulties (and amount of work) will mostly depend on the completeness of the old project. Back then the graphics of the symbols was not cached inside the project, and if the graphics is missing, your schematic symbols look like [??]. If you see this after conversion, you should first put some effort into learning how the rescue process works (triggered automatically when you open an old KiCad project in a new KiCad version). If the old libraries are really missing, the next option is to use: Schematic Editor. Tools / Edit Symbol Library Links
If you get stuck along the way, we’re always here to help you get unstuck.