I found the need for a tool to create a symbol library from a directory of symbol files and I couldn’t find a way to do it in kicad, so I wrote a python script to do it. It’s simple and may lack some error checking, but it works for me (so far). I’ll continue to refine it as the need arises. Feel free to download and try it.
2 Likes
I am not entirely sure, but I think long term goal for KiCad is to have support for both “packed” and “unpacked” footprint and symbol libraries.
Being able to do this conversion with kicad-cli does also seem logical to me, but a python script works too I guess.
Added a python script that updates all the symbols in a directory to the latest symbol format. A backup of the original file is created with .original appended to end of original filename. It’s available on my github page.
update_kicad_symbols.py
Nice idea, I like it. I suppose the need arose from downloading vendor symbols that (obviously) are stored as single files?
You got a “like” from me.
Why?
I mentioned kicad-cli earlier, and upgrading libraries is one of the things it can already do.
paul@cezanne:~$ kicad-cli sym upgrade
input: 1 argument(s) expected. 0 provided.
Usage: upgrade [--help] [--output OUTPUT_FILE] [--force] INPUT_FILE
Upgrades the symbol library to the current kicad version format
Positional arguments:
INPUT_FILE Input file
Optional arguments:
-h, --help Shows help message and exits
-o, --output Output file [nargs=0..1] [default: ""]
--force Forces the symbol library to be resaved regardless of versioning
Impressively nerdy and uninformative.
The Linux man pages are full-blown user manuals compared to that.
No sale.
But I fail to see the usefulness of version conversion as well.
It can only be done on personal libraries.
Do they need a new version format? The old one still works, and utilizing the (few) new features will necessitate editing the symbols anyway.
There is no man page for kicad-cli. kicad-cli is relatively new. It’s also still being extended and a moving target. But if you want a man page for it, you’re free to write one 
But overall, the built in help output of kicad-cli is sparse but helpful. It always spits out some help if it is not a fully valid command. and the total amount of help built in is quite reasonable.
paul@cezanne:~$ kicad-cli
Usage: kicad-cli [--version] [--help] {fp,pcb,sch,sym,version}
Optional arguments:
-v, --version prints version information and exits
-h, --help Shows help message and exits
Subcommands:
fp Footprint and Footprint Libraries
pcb PCB
sch Schematics
sym Symbol and Symbol Libraries
version Reports the version info in various formats
paul@cezanne:~$ kicad-cli ml9104
Failed to parse 'ml9104', did you mean 'fp'
Usage: kicad-cli [--version] [--help] {fp,pcb,sch,sym,version}
Optional arguments:
-v, --version prints version information and exits
-h, --help Shows help message and exits
Subcommands:
fp Footprint and Footprint Libraries
pcb PCB
sch Schematics
sym Symbol and Symbol Libraries
version Reports the version info in various formats
paul@cezanne:~$ kicad-cli pcb
Usage: pcb [--help] {drc,export}
PCB
Optional arguments:
-h, --help Shows help message and exits
Subcommands:
drc Runs the Design Rules Check (DRC) on the PCB and creates a report
export Export utilities (Gerbers, drill, position files, etc)
paul@cezanne:~$ kicad-cli pcb export
Usage: export [--help] {drill,dxf,gerber,gerbers,glb,ipc2581,pdf,pos,step,svg,vrml}
Export utilities (Gerbers, drill, position files, etc)
Optional arguments:
-h, --help Shows help message and exits
Subcommands:
drill Generate Drill Files
dxf Generate a DXF from a list of layers
gerber Plot given layers to a single Gerber file
gerbers Plot multiple Gerbers for a PCB, including the ability to use stored board plot settings
glb Export GLB (binary GLTF)
ipc2581 Export the PCB in IPC2581 format
pdf Generate PDF from a list of layers
pos Generate Position File
step Export STEP
svg Generate SVG outputs of a given layer list
vrml Export VRML
paul@cezanne:~$ kicad-cli pcb export drill
input: 1 argument(s) expected. 0 provided.
Usage: drill [--help] [--output OUTPUT_DIR] [--format FORMAT] [--drill-origin DRILL_ORIGIN] [--excellon-zeros-format ZEROS_FORMAT] [--excellon-oval-format OVAL_FORMAT] [--excellon-units UNITS] [--excellon-mirror-y] [--excellon-min-header] [--excellon-separate-th] [--generate-map] [--map-format MAP_FORMAT] [--gerber-precision VAR] INPUT_FILE
Generate Drill Files
Positional arguments:
INPUT_FILE Input file
Optional arguments:
-h, --help Shows help message and exits
-o, --output Output directory [nargs=0..1] [default: ""]
--format Valid options excellon, gerber. [nargs=0..1] [default: "excellon"]
--drill-origin Valid options are: absolute,plot [nargs=0..1] [default: "absolute"]
--excellon-zeros-format Valid options are: decimal,suppressleading,suppresstrailing,keep. [nargs=0..1] [default: "decimal"]
--excellon-oval-format Valid options are: route,alternate. [nargs=0..1] [default: "alternate"]
-u, --excellon-units Output units, valid options:in,mm [nargs=0..1] [default: "mm"]
--excellon-mirror-y Mirror Y axis
--excellon-min-header Minimal header
--excellon-separate-th Generate independent files for NPTH and PTH holes
--generate-map Generate map / summary of drill hits
--map-format Valid options: pdf,gerberx2,ps,dxf,svg [nargs=0..1] [default: "pdf"]
--gerber-precision Precision of Gerber coordinates (5 or 6) [nargs=0..1] [default: 6]
For 2 reasons:
kicad-cli creates a new file, instead of updating the current file
kicad-cli updates only a single file each time it is invoked
The script that I wrote uses kicad-cli, but updates all the files in a directory, backing up the original files (if they were modified). I shared the scripts because I found them useful. Feel free to not use them.