Hi!
At the risk of getting many not-pleased comments in reply, I have tried the current versions of KiCAD and I have to confess the style of it's "system font" on the schematics doesn't really appeal to me!
I was born in 1961 and learnt electrical/electronic engineering at a time when nearly all circuit-diagrams were annotated with stencilled letters, and in fact I have a British-made UNO stencil that produces 1960s style upright "Practical Wireless" lettering - is there anyone who's more expert on the KiCAD source code than I am can give me an insight into the "system font" is coded and what's involved in modifying it please, then recompiling it to make my own "Practical Wireless" style KiCAD?
Chris Williams
That is likely going to be a bit complicated - the font used is not a normal TrueType font. These are so called "stroke" fonts, drawn out of individual lines. There is one hard-compiled in the source code.
You may want to look at the files ./include/newstroke_font.h, ./common/newstroke_font.cpp (that's where the font is actually stored) and helpers/tools_to_build_newstroke-font folder which has a tool to compile a new font.
(this is from the latest KICAD compiled from source, the older stable version may be different!)
Hi Chris,
just to add my two cents - the font and the old-school user interface of KiCad works for me very well (*1986). It reminds me of CR5000 schematic editor which is the best schematic editor I've ever used. I use AD17 professionally and the default Times New Roman in the schematic editor drives me insane
Sorry for the OT. I could not resist.
I seem to remember the fonts being drawn out as individual lines on the PCB side had to do with some of the places doing cheap pcbs have trouble with actual fonts. That's why the individual lines. It also complicates things like doing round holes that aren't a drill size. Basically this approach minimizes the chance a board manufacturer will complain. I'm not sure if the problem still persists today or if this is a legacy fix to a legacy problem. This leads to people drawing shapes in outside software such as FreeCAD and them importing them into the board.
Hi!
Just to add my two cents - the font and the old-school user interface of KiCad works for me very well (*1986). It reminds me of CR5000 schematic editor which is the best schematic editor I've ever used. I use AD17 professionally and the default Times New Roman in the schematic editor drives me insane
I entirely agree on this point - in fact I believe Chris Schroder's book on 1980's book on Orcad Schematic Capture specifically stated in his opening chapter that "Serifs and other embellishments have no place on a technical drawing."
Chris Williams