Re: gEDA-user: Text in PCB elements

[Colin D Bennett <colin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 9 Dec 2010 15:35:23 -0300
John Coppens <john@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I'd like to put text into PCB elements (in this case to label pins of
> a connector on the silk screen), but that doesn't seem possible...
> Each time I try to add text to an element, it just disappears. I
> checked the specs.
> 
> I know I could do it manually at board design time, but I use this
> connector regularly, and would rather have the text at the pins be
> printed automatically. I suspect this would be welcome to mark C, B, E
> in transistors, K/A in diodes, and other applications.

I have recently found an easy and flexible way of getting text and
arbitrary graphics into PCB by creating a drawing in Inkscape with my
text, then exporting to PostScript, using the 'pstoedit' program to
convert to a pcb-format file where the Inkscape-created drawing is
rendered with pcb polygons and lines.  It is a great way of getting any
sort of artwork or text onto the board.

Unfortunately this may not work well for footprints since I have found
the best results from pstoedit to be achieved using the pcbfill
output driver, which uses only polygons to render text, and PCB does
not support polygons in footprints, even on the silk layer, apparently.

Regards,
Colin


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