[Solved] identify multiple occurrences of device sheets in the generated pdf

[Auciele]

Hello everyone,

In many of my hierarchical project i use device sheets, board level annotation and "number schematic sheet". Once the project finished i use an outputjob to generate a PDF file.
1) device sheet share the same page number in the PDF in a way that i can end up with a 10 pages PDF but the highest page would be page 8 for example.
2) in the PDF i couldn't find any ways to identify a device sheet occurrence from one to another.

that lead to a really unpractical PDF schematic. Do you have some tips to share and solve this issue in any ways?
thanks.

[Pseudobyte]

Ah yes, this one took me a bit to figure out originally. Once you gain the understanding of how Altium works as a piece of software it makes much more sense.

To generate useful schematics from Hierarchical projects you need to do a few things differently.

First Compile your design!

Second annotate your compiled schematics: Tools > Annotation > Annotate Compiled Sheets... (you can change how this behaves by using the drop down arrow, I prefer to do a breadth first annotation, but dealers choice)

Third when you generate a schematic pdf from your output job file you need to have these settings:

Data Source = [Project Physical Documents]



*Double click on the schematic output*

Then set the following (ignore the settings in the top section you care about the physical name expansion):

You need to expand designators, and the sheet number parameter. I also expand ports to make those unique.




Best of luck to you!

~Bryan

[Auciele]

Nice!   

that will likely do the job but i was wondering, with your setup: ports gets a specific name that include the designator of the device sheet they belong to.
additionnaly is there a way to have a dynamic string in the device sheet that would depend on the device sheet designator to ease the identification?

thanks

[Pseudobyte]

I am not sure about the string thing. I looked quickly through the altium docs for a compiled parameter that would do what you want but didn't see anything.

[Auciele]

As a side note, when you publish a PDF, the index/bookmark title have a suffix with the device sheet designator. (but it only works for the  pdf reader. If you print the schematic, you'll lose this data).

i'll mark this subject as resolved.