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User Manual for PCB-4.2.1 an Open Source, Interactive Printed Circuit Board Layout Program

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User Manual for PCB-4.2.1 an Open Source, Interactive Printed Circuit Board Layout Program User Manual for PCB-4.2.1 an open source, interactive printed circuit board layout program by Harry Eaton and PCB Contributors This User Manual documents how to use PCB-4.2.1, the open source, interactive printed circuit board layout program. Copyright c 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2004 Thomas Nau Copyright c 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Harry Eaton Copyright c 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 Dan McMahill Copyright c 2004 DJ Delorie Copyright c 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 PCB Contributors This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WAR- RANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANT-ABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. i Table of Contents History ....................................... 1 1 Overview .................................. 4 2 Introduction............................... 5 2.1 Header ..................................................... 5 2.2 Symbols .................................................... 5 2.3 Vias........................................................ 5 2.4 Elements ................................................... 6 2.5 Layers ...................................................... 7 2.6 Lines ....................................................... 8 2.7 Arcs........................................................ 9 2.8 Polygons ................................................... 9 2.9 Text ...................................................... 10 2.10 Nets ..................................................... 10 3 Getting Started........................... 12 3.1 The Application Window ................................... 12 3.1.1 Menus ................................................ 12 3.1.2 The Status-line and Input-field ......................... 15 3.1.3 The Layer Controls .................................... 15 3.1.4 The Tool Selectors ..................................... 16 3.1.5 Layout Area........................................... 18 3.2 Log Window ............................................... 18 3.3 Library Window ........................................... 19 3.4 Netlist Window ............................................ 19 3.5 Drawing and Removing Basic Objects ....................... 19 3.5.1 Common Drawing and Removing Methods............... 20 3.5.2 Lines ................................................. 21 3.5.3 Arcs .................................................. 21 3.5.4 Polygons and Rectangles ............................... 21 3.5.5 Text .................................................. 22 3.5.6 Vias .................................................. 22 3.5.7 Elements .............................................. 22 3.5.8 Pastebuffer ............................................ 24 3.6 Moving and Copying ....................................... 24 3.7 Loading and Saving ........................................ 25 3.8 Printing ................................................... 25 3.9 Exporting a layout ......................................... 27 3.9.1 Bill of materials (bom) ................................. 27 3.9.2 G-code (gcode) ........................................ 27 3.9.3 Gerber (gerber)........................................ 29 ii 3.9.4 Postscript (ps)......................................... 29 3.9.5 Encapsulated Postscript (eps)........................... 29 3.9.6 Image (png) ........................................... 29 3.9.7 Nelma (nelma) ........................................ 29 3.9.8 GSvit (gsvit) .......................................... 30 3.9.9 IPC-D-356 (ipcd356) ................................... 30 3.10 Connection Lists .......................................... 30 3.11 Arrow Tool ............................................... 31 3.12 Rats Nest ................................................ 31 3.13 Design Rule Checking ..................................... 32 3.14 Trace Optimizer........................................... 33 3.15 Searching for elements ..................................... 34 3.16 Measuring distances ....................................... 34 3.17 Vendor Drill Mapping ..................................... 34 4 Autorouter ............................... 36 5 Toporouter ............................... 37 6 User Commands .......................... 38 7 Command-Line Options ................... 39 7.1 General Options............................................ 39 7.2 General GUI Options ....................................... 41 7.3 GTK+ GUI Options ........................................ 42 7.4 lesstif GUI Options ......................................... 42 7.5 Colors ..................................................... 42 7.6 Layer Names............................................... 43 7.7 Paths ..................................................... 44 7.8 Sizes ...................................................... 44 7.9 Commands ................................................ 46 7.10 DRC Options ............................................. 46 7.11 BOM Creation ............................................ 47 7.12 G-code Options ........................................... 47 7.13 Gerber Export ............................................ 48 7.14 Postscript Export ......................................... 49 7.15 Encapsulated Postscript Export ............................ 50 7.16 PNG Options ............................................. 50 7.17 Nelma Options ............................................ 51 7.18 IPC-D-356 Netlist Export.................................. 51 7.19 gsvit Options ............................................. 51 7.20 lpr Printing Options ....................................... 52 8 X11 Interface............................. 53 8.1 Non-Standard X11 Application Resources .................... 53 8.2 Actions .................................................... 59 8.3 Default Translations ........................................ 69 iii 9 File Formats.............................. 71 9.1 Pad and Line Representation ................................ 71 9.2 Layout File Format......................................... 71 9.3 Element File Format ....................................... 72 9.4 Font File Format ........................................... 72 9.5 Netlist File Format ......................................... 73 9.6 Library Contents File Format ............................... 74 9.7 Library File Format ........................................ 74 9.8 File Syntax ................................................ 75 9.8.1 Arc ................................................... 75 9.8.2 Attribute ............................................. 76 9.8.3 Connect............................................... 77 9.8.4 Cursor ................................................ 77 9.8.5 DRC.................................................. 77 9.8.6 Element............................................... 78 9.8.7 ElementArc ........................................... 79 9.8.8 ElementLine........................................... 79 9.8.9 FileVersion ............................................ 79 9.8.10 Flags ................................................ 80 9.8.11 Grid ................................................. 80 9.8.12 Groups .............................................. 80 9.8.13 Layer ................................................ 80 9.8.14 Line ................................................. 81 9.8.15 Mark ................................................ 82 9.8.16 Net .................................................. 82 9.8.17 Netlist ............................................... 82 9.8.18 Pad ................................................. 82 9.8.19 PCB................................................. 83 9.8.20 Pin .................................................. 83 9.8.21 PolyArea............................................. 84 9.8.22 Polygon.............................................. 84 9.8.23 Rat.................................................. 84 9.8.24 Styles................................................ 85 9.8.25 Symbol .............................................. 86 9.8.26 SymbolLine .......................................... 86 9.8.27 Text ................................................. 86 9.8.28 Thermal ............................................. 87 9.8.29 Via .................................................. 87 9.9 Object Flags ............................................... 88 9.10 PCBFlags ................................................ 89 iv 10 Library Creation ........................ 91 10.1 Old Style (m4) Libraries ................................... 91 10.1.1 Overview of Oldlib Operation.......................... 91 10.1.2 The Library Scripts ................................... 92 10.1.2.1 Scripts Used During Compilation .................. 92 10.1.2.2 Scripts Used by PCB at Runtime.................. 93 10.1.3 Creating an Oldlib Footprint .......................... 94 10.1.4 Troubleshooting Old Style Libraries .................... 96 10.2 New Style Libraries ....................................... 97 10.2.1 Creating Newlib Footprints ............................ 97 10.2.2 Modifying Newlib Footprints .......................... 98 11 Schematic Capture for PCB .............. 99 11.1
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