element14 Community
element14 Community
    Register Log In
  • Site
  • Search
  • Log In Register
  • Community Hub
    Community Hub
    • What's New on element14
    • Feedback and Support
    • Benefits of Membership
    • Personal Blogs
    • Members Area
    • Achievement Levels
  • Learn
    Learn
    • Ask an Expert
    • eBooks
    • element14 presents
    • Learning Center
    • Tech Spotlight
    • STEM Academy
    • Webinars, Training and Events
    • Learning Groups
  • Technologies
    Technologies
    • 3D Printing
    • FPGA
    • Industrial Automation
    • Internet of Things
    • Power & Energy
    • Sensors
    • Technology Groups
  • Challenges & Projects
    Challenges & Projects
    • Design Challenges
    • element14 presents Projects
    • Project14
    • Arduino Projects
    • Raspberry Pi Projects
    • Project Groups
  • Products
    Products
    • Arduino
    • Avnet Boards Community
    • Dev Tools
    • Manufacturers
    • Multicomp Pro
    • Product Groups
    • Raspberry Pi
    • RoadTests & Reviews
  • Store
    Store
    • Visit Your Store
    • Choose another store...
      • Europe
      •  Austria (German)
      •  Belgium (Dutch, French)
      •  Bulgaria (Bulgarian)
      •  Czech Republic (Czech)
      •  Denmark (Danish)
      •  Estonia (Estonian)
      •  Finland (Finnish)
      •  France (French)
      •  Germany (German)
      •  Hungary (Hungarian)
      •  Ireland
      •  Israel
      •  Italy (Italian)
      •  Latvia (Latvian)
      •  
      •  Lithuania (Lithuanian)
      •  Netherlands (Dutch)
      •  Norway (Norwegian)
      •  Poland (Polish)
      •  Portugal (Portuguese)
      •  Romania (Romanian)
      •  Russia (Russian)
      •  Slovakia (Slovak)
      •  Slovenia (Slovenian)
      •  Spain (Spanish)
      •  Sweden (Swedish)
      •  Switzerland(German, French)
      •  Turkey (Turkish)
      •  United Kingdom
      • Asia Pacific
      •  Australia
      •  China
      •  Hong Kong
      •  India
      •  Korea (Korean)
      •  Malaysia
      •  New Zealand
      •  Philippines
      •  Singapore
      •  Taiwan
      •  Thailand (Thai)
      • Americas
      •  Brazil (Portuguese)
      •  Canada
      •  Mexico (Spanish)
      •  United States
      Can't find the country/region you're looking for? Visit our export site or find a local distributor.
  • Translate
  • Profile
  • Settings
Autodesk EAGLE
  • Products
  • More
Autodesk EAGLE
EAGLE User Chat (English) Board - What is shown and how to change it?
  • Blog
  • Forum
  • Documents
  • Events
  • Polls
  • Files
  • Members
  • Mentions
  • Sub-Groups
  • Tags
  • More
  • Cancel
  • New
Join Autodesk EAGLE to participate - click to join for free!
Actions
  • Share
  • More
  • Cancel
Forum Thread Details
  • State Verified Answer
  • Replies 4 replies
  • Answers 1 answer
  • Subscribers 172 subscribers
  • Views 323 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

Board - What is shown and how to change it?

Former Member
Former Member over 10 years ago

Hi All,

 

New to Eagle but learning reasonably well.  I have a rather crowded PCB I'm laying out and currently it looks like a real mess because when I move the components as I need them to fit the labels such as Name and Value are all running on top of each other and also they are just way too big.

 

When in the board editor how do I change the position of the labels and values and their size? 

 

Thanks in advance!

  • Sign in to reply
  • Cancel
  • shabaz
    0 shabaz over 10 years ago

    Hi Mark,

     

    The 'Smash' icon is used for this (it doesn't look like anything describable, but hover over the icons and you'll soon spot it - it should be in the manual too. After that, you need the 'Change' icon (which looks like a spanner), and select Size.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • Verify Answer
    • Reject Answer
    • Cancel
  • autodeskguest
    0 autodeskguest over 10 years ago

    On 2014-11-11 16:12:38 +0000, Mark Holbrook said:

    When in the board editor how do I change the position of the labels and

    values and their size? 

     

    There's probably a script to do this but I'm not aware of it.

     

    You use smash to allow the part name/value to be moved independently of

    the part itself. Smash also allows you to size (or outright delete) the

    name and/or value of a component as well.

     

    What I generally do is to completely ignore the name and value when

    laying out and positioning. I do this by turning off the layers. "dis

    -tnames -tvalues -bnames -bvalues" does this for components on both the

    top and bottom of the board.

     

    When I am happy with the layout, I save my work (I keep my files in

    git, so I make sure I've committed my changes to the repo) and then get

    on with the business of making the silk screen layers look better.

     

    dis -1 -16 turns off the top and bottom layers (so I see no traces).

    dis torigins borigins makes sure that I can select the components on

    both the top and bottom layers.

     

    Then I group ALL of the components and smash the group

     

    Now I turn OFF the top and bottom origins, and turn ON the tnames and

    bnames layers (I never place component values on the silk, but you can

    enable those layers as well if you like:

     

    dis -torigins -borigins tnames bnames

     

    You'll notice that there are little part origin markers image by every

    bit of part text, but not on the components themselves. I like this

    because I can't accidentally move a component when moving the text

    around.

     

    Now I group all the component texts and change their size and ratio so

    it's uniform.  "ch siz 40mil", right-clicking the entire group and and

    "ch ratio 15" and right-clicking the entire group again. The board

    manufacturer I use (hackvana) can handle 4mil wide silkscreen lines, so

    by changing the height of all of the text to 40mil and then a ratio of

    15% I get 40 * .15 or 6mil wide silk lines, which gives me a nice

    silkscreen font and size.

     

    I usually do one layer at a time (top followed by bottom) so I turn OFF

    the layer I'm not interested in but turn on the appropriate stop mask

    layer so I can see where I can't place text.  I turn on the appropriate

    "place" layer as well since this is the graphics (part outlines, etc.)

    that will be on the silkscreen layer.

     

    dis tnames tplace tstop -bnames -bplace -bstop

     

    Much placement and fiddling around ensues, but I end up with nicely

    placed text. Turn on the various layers in various combinations and

    tweak/fiddle with things until I'm satisified, then generate gerbers,

    zip them up and throw them at gerblook.org to see what the board might

    look like.

     

    It's an iterative process, but it works nicely.

     

    -A.

     

     

     

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • Reject Answer
    • Cancel
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 10 years ago in reply to autodeskguest

    Thank you both.  

     

    I've used a number of CAD editors and each has its own different way of doing things.

     

    I have two other questions that hopefully you guys could answer:

     

    1) I have some power traces so I ended out routing those manually and set larger trace widths.  I then ran the auto-router and it seemed to do a pretty good job.   But I notice that the autorouter is using via and trace sizes I cannot seem to get to manually.  

     

    2) I manually placed a via to reroute stuff and and it ended up being a pretty big square pad/hole.  I've been trying everything I can think of to select it and change it's properties but everything I try selected either a nearby wire or component.  How can I select and adjust this component?

     

    3) Grouping.  I can't seem to get it to work.  I hit the icon, drag a rectangle and it blinks then after that, nothing.  I have tried selecting group again, clicking on a part but they don't seem to be grouped.  What am I doing wrong?

     

    Thanks again guys!!!

     

    Oh ya... one last question which I'm sure will cause everyone to have their own favorite place...  I'm looking for a cheap board house that accepts Eagle BRD files.  I am in the US.  I have looked at PCB pool but not sure if they are US or UK.  I downloaded their DRU, opened it and saved my board.  Any others that offer pretty easy ordering?   I'm on a tight timeframe for this board.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • Verify Answer
    • Cancel
  • autodeskguest
    0 autodeskguest over 10 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Mark Holbrook wrote:

     

    I have two other questions that hopefully you guys could answer:

     

    one question per post, and don't append new questions to ols threads

    please

     

     

    1) I have some power traces so I ended out routing those manually and

    set larger trace widths.  I then ran the auto-router and it seemed to do

    a pretty good job.   But I notice that the autorouter is using via and

    trace sizes I cannot seem to get to manually.  

     

    use the 'change width' command from the command line.

    After that, the new width should show up in the menu too.

     

     

    2) I manually placed a via to reroute stuff and and it ended up being a

    pretty big square pad/hole.  I've been trying everything I can think of

    to select it and change it's properties but everything I try selected

    either a nearby wire or component.  How can I select and adjust this

    component?

     

    either use the info dialog (select the info icon, or type 'info

    ' on the command line; then click on the via)

     

    or 'change drill' and 'change shape' (either via icon, menu or command

    line'

     

     

    3) Grouping.  I can't seem to get it to work.  I hit the icon, drag a

    rectangle and it blinks then after that, nothing.  I have tried

    selecting group again, clicking on a part but they don't seem to be

    grouped.  What am I doing wrong?

     

    actions on groups are performed using the right mouse button:

    select the command, then either right-click and select the 'group:

    command' entry from the context menu, or ctrl-right-click to perform

    the command directly. (I'm to totaly sure that works as descrived

    because I've set Option.ToggleCtrlForGroupSelectionAndContextMenu to

    get back the classic right-click == group-action behaviour.

     

     

    I suggest you make yourself familiar with the command line, it's IMHO

    much faster and flexible as working with menues. Especially in

    conjunction with keyboard shortcuts (help assign)

    --

     

    Lorenz

     

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Sign in to reply
    • Verify Answer
    • Cancel
element14 Community

element14 is the first online community specifically for engineers. Connect with your peers and get expert answers to your questions.

  • Members
  • Learn
  • Technologies
  • Challenges & Projects
  • Products
  • Store
  • About Us
  • Feedback & Support
  • FAQs
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Legal and Copyright Notices
  • Sitemap
  • Cookies

An Avnet Company © 2025 Premier Farnell Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Premier Farnell Ltd, registered in England and Wales (no 00876412), registered office: Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds LS12 2NE.

ICP 备案号 10220084.

Follow element14

  • X
  • Facebook
  • linkedin
  • YouTube