KiCad Designing a PCB

I am running KiCAD off of my Mac and I don’t have global spread for footprints. I am new to this so, is global spread important to my project? Is there another way to spread?

I would never consider Global Spread as important for a project. I find it just a convenience right at the very start of a layout where there are many parts. In fact, if I ever use it at all, it would only be the one time in a project.

The Global Spread is context sensitive. You need to be in “Default Canvas Mode” (View - Switch Canvas to Default F9) and you need to have the Footprint mode Icon selected

After all that, you should then see the Global Spread and Place option when you right-mouse-clink on the canvas.

Other than that, there is just the ol’ fashioned way of just moving the parts around one at a time.

If you have further issues, there would be better qualified answers on the KiCad Forum

4 Likes

Thank you, I just tried the suggestion and it didn’t work. I think there is something wrong with my board. I don’t know how to trouble shoot. When I run DRC in PCBNew it generates Pad near pad error. I think that is my problem. I will try to fix it but, either way, the global spread is still not showing on Mac even after ensuring “Default Canvas Mode” is on. Regardless, I appreciate your time in trying to help me with my project.

You also have to be in footprint mode (clicking the button steve shows above). Usually in a case like this, you might have parts stacked on top of one another.

Have you gone through the getting to blinky tutorial? https://contextualelectronics.com/courses/getting-to-blinky/

Maybe run through that to get all of the critical steps first?

2 Likes

Thank you for the response Chris. I have not gone through the Blinky tutorial. I will start on that immediately! I really like this site so far and I appreciate how active you are with the members.

You could start you own Build Log and let us know how you get on :slight_smile:

1 Like