Altium Silkscreen Reference Designators Question

When I am creating a custom PCB footprint in altium how do I specifiy a position and size for the reference designator when I create the component. I know the program will automatically put one when I place it on the board but I want to be able to define ahead of time a position and size. How do I do this?

I could be wrong but I don't think you can do this - you can set the default size in the preferences, DXP --> Preferences --> PCB Editor --> Defaults then click component in the primitives box and edit values.

Really? That sucks. I don't know about everybody else but I use different sizes based on the size of the component. If it's a huge component I use large text.

It is a bit crap! I've thought of a work around though by using the .Designator special string and place one manually on the silkscreen layer. One for each footprint and set the size to suit that component. It just means when you start to layout the components on the board you will have to hide all the true designators. Placement won't be the best either as there is no center justify for text - altought it may be coming in a update as it's quite a requested thing.

We use the .Designator screen to add the designator to our Assembly Drawings, means you can have two designators of diferent sizes and locations.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

Try .designator.

In PCB Library,
Go to place/ string /Press tab/select text as .designator from dropdown list and place it on any mechanical layer.

In PCB,
Press L shortcut select view options and check 'convert special strings'.

ltkenbo said:

Really? That sucks. I don't know about everybody else but I use different sizes based on the size of the component. If it's a huge component I use large text.

Click to expand...

On the PCB layout page hit the PCB in the bottom right of the screen,
a.) select PCB List b.) when the list opens select "Edit", "All Objects", and "Include only Text" at the top left
You should have a "excel" like spread sheet. Click the header for the column you want to sort by (e.g. Component) and then modify the Text Height (and width if desired) value for any component on the board. Just like excel you can cntrl C copy from one cell, drag the cells you want to copy to and cntrl V paste into those cells.

You can highlight a entire column, copy it, paste into Excel to make changes, and then paste the column back into PCB list. You can make all of the changes you want in a few minutes.

SCH (SCH List) allows you to make global changes to the schematic in a similar fashion.