Release of New Version: KiCad 7.0.0.
While the KiCad 6 version was brought at the end of December 2019 and had many upgrades, this version of KiCad is filled with treasure troves for you. It comes with a number of exciting new features as well as improvements to existing features. Some of these features, you might’ve seen mentioned in the KiCad 2022 end-of-year recap, and now, we get to play with them in a more stable configuration.
Also, in accordance with the KiCad stable release policy, KiCad 6.x will no longer be maintained, and the team will release bug fix versions of KiCad 7.x over the next year while they simultaneously develop KiCad 8.
This is Big News:
More than 6000 commits, fixing over 1200 reported issues and adding a number of new features, KiCad 7 is a big release and brings about many ease to the users and the world of EDA. This post highlights some of the new features, but there are many other improvements and fixes made by almost 200 different contributors. Watch out for our full in-depth review and tutorial on Kicad 7.0 soon!
What’s New?
The much needed excitement is not overrated rather well deserved. This is because of the add-ons brought by KiCad in the form of KiCad 7.0.0.
Some of the features have been highlighted herein this article.
- Custom font support is now available in the schematic, PCB, and worksheet editors to allow the use of any system font.
- Text box support is added in both the schematic and PCB editors.
- Drag and drop handles have been added to various parts of KiCad. It lets you append schematic and PCB portions into your boards from other projects
- Support for a simple rectangle and circle primitives has been added to the schematic and symbol editors to round out the shapes already provided.
- The Symbol Editor Pin Table got a number of new features
- A new ERC check to warn when symbols are placed using an incompatible grid.
- KiCad can now add connectivity to external databases via ODBC functionality across KiCad’s three main platforms.
- Hyperlinks are now supported inside schematics.
- Support has been added to the export of symbol information in schematics to the plotted PDF.
While these were some of the upgrades there are plenty more. Furthermore, there are various PCB tools enhancements brought into this KiCad update. You can read the full update list here.
Conclusion:
With the increase in demand for paid software in the market, KiCad is bringing in updates super fast to its software while keeping it completely open source!
KiCad team is moving towards a faster major release schedule, comparing today’s date with KiCad 5 release in December 2018 and KiCad 6 release in December 2021. These updates will make the designer’s process seamless.
Link to learn more:
Leave a comment