Printing
Pcb
now has support for device drivers,
PostScript
, encapsulated PostScript,
and Gerber RS-274-X drivers are
available so far. The Gerber RS-274-X
driver additionally generates a numerical control (NC) drill file for
automated drilling,
a bill of materials file to assist in materials procurement and
inventory control, and a centroid (X-Y) file which includes the
centroid data needed
by automatic assembly (pick and place) machines.
I recommend the use of GhostScript
if you
don't have a PostScript
printer for handling the PostScript
output. Printing always generates
a complete set of files for a specified driver.
See the page about
the Print() action for additional information about the filenames.
The control panel offers a number of options. Most of them are not available
for Gerber output because it wouldn't make sense, for example, to scale the gerber output
(you'd get an incorrectly made board!) The options are:
device
- The top menu button selects from the available device drivers.
rotate
- Rotate layout 90 degrees counter-clockwise before printing (default).
mirror
- Mirror layout before printing. Use this option depending
on your production line.
color
- Created colored output. All colors will be converted to black if this option
is inactive.
outline
- Add a board outline to the output file. The size is determined by the
maximum board size changeable from the sizes menu. The outline appears
on the top and bottom sides of the board, but not on the internal layers.
An outline can be useful for determining where to shear the board from the
panel, but be aware that it creates a copper line. Thus it has the potential
to cause short circuits if you don't leave enough room from your wiring
to the board edge. Use a viewer to see what the output outline looks like
if you want to know what it looks like.
alignment
- Additional alignment targets are added to the output. The distances between
the board outline is set by the resource alignmentDistance. Alignment
targets should only be used if you know for certain that YOU WILL BE USING
THEM YOURSELF. It is extremely unlikely that you will want to have alignment
targets if you send gerber files to a commercial pcb manufacture to be made.
scaling
- It's quite useful to enlarge your printout for checking the layout.
Use the scrollbar to adjust the scaling factor to your needs.
media
- Select the size of the output media from this menu. The user defined size
may be set by the resource media either from one of the well known
paper sizes or by a
X11
geometry specification.
This entry is only available if you use X11R5
or later.
For earlier releases the user defined size or, if not available, A4
is used.
Well known size are:
A3
A4
A5
letter
tabloid
ledger
legal
executive
offset
- Adjust the offsets of the printout by using the panner at the right side
of the dialog box.
This entry is only available if you use
X11R5
or later. A zero
offset is used for earlier releases.
8.3 filenames
- Select this button to generate DOS compatible filenames for the output files.
The command input area will disappear if selected.
commandline
- Use this line to enter a command (starts with |) or a filename.
A %f is replaced by the current filename.
The default is set by the resource printCommand.
The created file includes some labels which are guaranteed to stay unchanged
PCBMIN
- identifies the lowest x and y coordinates in mil.
PCBMAX
- identifies the highest x and y coordinates in mil.
PCBOFFSET
- is set to the x and y offset in mil.
PCBSCALE
- is a floating point value which identifies the scaling factor.
PCBSTARTDATA
PCBENDDATA
- all layout data is included between these two marks. You may use them with an
awk
script to produce several printouts on one piece of paper by
duplicating the code and putting some translate
commands in front.
Note, the normal PostScript
units are 1/72 inch.