Hello all, I’m new to this forum and to KiCad, and I’m hoping this large community can help me with a question.
I current have a large quantity of schematic and PCB files that have been created in Solidworks PCB Version 2021.5.0 (build 4).
My understanding is that this is a reskin of an earlier version of Altium. The Schematic drawings seem to be 100% the same format but the PCB layout files are ‘specially tweaked’
KiCad 7.0.1 seems perfectly happy with importing the Schematic as its basically an Altium format file but it refuses to successfully read the PCB files.
The PCB files extension is .SWPcbDoc
I have tried editing the extension to just .PcbDoc and to others but it still won’t read it.
In the PCB editor I select File > Import > Non-KiCad Board file then browse to the PCB file.
KiCad then displays an error window with “File not Found: ‘Regions6\Data’.”.
When you click on details it shows lots of other files not found.
Is there a work around for this or some way of converting the PCB files so they can be read.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I can provide more info if needed.
Thank you
Andrew
Do they open in solid? If yes, you must select the format when saving
Hello, yes they all open ok in Solidworks, but it doesn’t give you the option to ‘Save As’ or export to another format. When the PCB file is created it saves the file automatically as SWPcbDoc.
Can you open SWPcbDoc from Altium? If yes, try to save it as PcbDoc then import it to KiCad.
I don’t know much about those file formats, but if other methods fail, you can probably still:
With that method you can get around 80% of the work embedded in a PCB in a few minutes. Reconstructing the other 20% is a bit tedious and time consuming, but not very difficult to do.
Also, If you are using some proprietary file format, It’s always nice to export your work in some universally readable format, even if it’s for example just a .PDF for schematics. I’ve been bitten a few times by software that has gone obsolete (20+ years ago) and no way to read those old file formats. From some old projects, PNG pictures made from the schematic is all that is left now.
Hi Sarfat96, good idea !
I’ll try the trial version of Altium and see if it will convert the files into standard Altium format 
I’ll let you know how I get on 
Hi Paulvdh,
Thanks for your reply. Interesting work around. Will give it a go if the Altium conversion doesn’t go well.
Does this help ?
or
Support for importing Solidworks PCB board files has been added to KiCad nightly.
It will be released on KiCad 8
I was getting these errors when importing from the latest Altium 23.8.1(or 23.6.0, or 23.7.1 )
I solved it by first exporting to Circuit Maker (*.CMPcbDoc) from Altium and then importing in Kicad Nightly.
It’d be great it you could create an issue on GitLab with some examples.
As an altium user, for reference, I can say that in version 23.7.1 the api has changed and some of the plugins have stopped working, for example, search boastools
I created the issue: PCB Editor can't import Altium's .PcbDoc directly (#15465) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab
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