Altium designer annotation problem.

[markbng]

Hi,

I have a problem with the automatic annotation of Altium (Tools|Annotate Schematics...). I want to group components with the same comment and footprint (100NF/0402, 220NF/0603 and 220NF/0402). Please see the steps in the attached pictures. Altium only does the 'order of processing' correct and doesn't group the components. The annotation in "GoodAnnotation.jpg" is correct (did it myself).
Please tell me what I am doing wrong....Thank you in advance.

Kind regards,
Mark

 

[toohec]

The "Matching Options" in the annotate schematics dialog box is only for multi-part components that share the same physical package. It does not apply to individual discrete components. So Altium's annotation process will not produce the results that you are looking for. You would need to select groups of similar parts (same footprint/value/etc) and then annotate only the selected parts in order for those components to have "adjacent" designators. That is way too much manual work, especially if you end up adding more components at a later time after the initial annotation. Plus it would make finding components in the schematic a chore.

What is your goal or purpose for doing this? The only potential benefit I could see would be in regards to BOM generation, but Altium has automated BOM tools that take care of that too.