KiCad is capable of running on a wide variety of hardware and operating systems, but some tasks may be slower or more difficult on lower-end hardware. For the best experience, a dedicated graphics card and display with 1920x1080 or higher resolution is recommended.

Please check the KiCad website for the latest system requirements: https://kicad.org/help/system-requirements/

KiCad crée et utilise, pour l’édition des schéma et circuits imprimés, des fichiers (et dossiers) avec les extensions suivantes.

Many of these files include important design information, especially the project file (.kicad_pro), the schematic file(s) (.kicad_sch), and the board file (.kicad_pcb). Other files may also be necessary. Such files should always be included when distributing the project. Some files are not necessary to distribute with the project, such as the project-local settings file (.kicad_prl) or the fp-info-cache file. Files that are unnecessary to distribute are noted in the table below.

Each major release of KiCad has its own configuration, so that you may run multiple KiCad versions on the same computer without the configurations interfering. The first time you run a new version of KiCad, you will be asked how to initialize the settings:

If a previous version of KiCad is detected, you will have the option to import the settings from that version. The location of the previous configuration files is detected automatically, but you may override it to choose another location if desired.

Please note that, the schematic symbol and footprint library tables from the previous version of KiCad will not be imported.

You may also choose to start with default settings if you do not want to import settings from a previous version.

KiCad stores the settings files in a folder inside your user directory. Each KiCad version will use a different versioned subfolder. For KiCad 8, those folders are:

Modern versions of KiCad can open files created in earlier versions, but can only write files in the latest formats. This means that in general, there are no special steps to migrate files from a previous version besides opening the files. In some cases, the file extension for a file has changed from one KiCad version to the next. After opening these files, they will be saved in the new format with the new file extension. The old files will not be deleted automatically.

The schematic editor documentation describes several particular considerations for opening legacy schematics.

In general, files created or modified by one version of KiCad cannot be opened by older versions of KiCad. For this reason, it is important to keep backup copies of your projects when testing a new KiCad release, until you are confident that you will not need to use the older KiCad version anymore.

You can also run the KiCad editor tools in standalone mode, by launching them directly from your operating system’s application launcher rather than from the project manager. It is usually not recommended to run the tools in standalone mode, except for some specific situations where it is necessary, such as when importing projects from other EDA tools. When running in standalone mode, some project features are not available, including:

Most KiCad designs start with the creation of a project. There are two ways to create a project from the KiCad project manager: you may create an empty project, or create a project based on an existing template. This section will cover the creation of a new, empty project. Creating projects from templates is covered in the Project Templates section.

To create a new project, use the New Project…​ command in the File menu, click the New Project button in the top toolbar, or use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+N by default).

You will be prompted for a name to give your project. By default, a directory will be created for your project with the same name. For example, if you enter the name MyProject, KiCad will create the directory MyProject and the project file MyProject/MyProject.kicad_pro inside it.

If you already have a directory to store your project files in, you can uncheck the Create a new directory for the project checkbox in the New Project dialog.

Once you select the name of your project, KiCad will create the following files inside the project directory:

KiCad is able to import files created by some other software packages. Some software formats can be imported as complete projects. Others can only be imported as standalone schematics or boards at the moment, and must be manually linked together into a KiCad project. Currently the following types of project are supported:

To import a project from one of these tools, choose the appropriate option from the Import Non-KiCad Project submenu of the File menu.

You will be prompted to select either a schematic or a board file in the import file browser dialog. The imported schematic and board files should have the same base file name (e.g. project.sch and project.brd). Once the requested files are selected, you will be asked to select a directory to store the resulting KiCad project.

Currently the following types of documents can be imported standalone. To import these documents, start the KiCad Schematic Editor or PCB Editor standalone (do not open the KiCad project manager first) and choose File > Import > Non-KiCad Schematic or File > Import > Non-KiCad Board File. When importing Altium projects, we recommend importing the PCB first, saving the resulting project, and then copying each schematic sheet into the project after importing it in a standalone Schematic Editor window.

You can archive your project’s files into a zip archive with the Archive tool (File → Archive Project…​).

You can also unarchive a project using the Unarchive tool (File → Unarchive Project…​). When you unarchive a project into the currently loaded project directory, the project will be reloaded automatically to reflect any changes that were in the archived version of the project.

The archive tool saves the following files from your project folder into the archive:

The KiCad Project Manager integrates with the Git version control tool for tracking changes in your projects. It can work with an existing local Git repository, clone a project from a remote repository, or create a new repository in an existing project. You can use the tool to commit changes from your project, push and pull from a remote repository, and switch branches.

If you open a project that is already under version control with Git, i.e. it is part of an existing Git repository, you can use KiCad’s version control features to track changes in the project without any additional configuration. The active branch is displayed next to the project name, and the version control status of each file in your project is shown graphically in the project files tree. For example, the icon indicates a file is unchanged, indicates a file has uncommitted changes, and indicates a file is not tracked. No icons are shown if the project is not part of a Git repository.

If an existing project is not already under version control, you can initialize a new Git repository in the project by right clicking on one of the files in the project files tree and clicking Version Control → Add Project to Version Control…​. You must configure a remote when initializing a repository in this way. Configuring the repository requires the following information:

To clone an existing repository and open the cloned project, use File → Clone Project from Repository…​. You can clone a remote repository using SSH or HTTPS, or clone a local repository. The configuration settings for cloning are the same as the settings for configuring a new repository and remote for an existing project.

When you have made changes that you want to commit, you can commit either the entire project (right click → Version Control → Commit Project…​) or a specific file (right click the file → Version Control → Commit File…​). Both actions open the Commit Changes dialog, but the Commit Project action shows all changed files in the repository, while the Commit File action shows only the file that was right clicked. The Commit Changes dialog lets you select the changed files you want to include in the commit, provide a commit message and author, and commit the changes.

To push changes to the remote, right click in the project files tree and select Version Control → Push. To pull from the remote, right click and select Version Control → Pull. You can switch branches by selecting the desired branch from the Version Control → Switch to Branch menu.

Finally, you can remove version control entirely, deleting all tracked history from the local repository, by right clicking and selecting Version Control → Remove Version Control.

Accelerated graphics antialising: KiCad can use different methods to prevent aliasing (jagged lines) when rendering using a graphics card. Different methods may look better on different hardware, so you may want to experiment to find the one that looks best to you.

Fallback graphics antialiasing: KiCad can also apply antialiasing when using the fallback graphics mode. Enabling this feature may result in poor performance on some hardware.

Text editor: Choose a text editor to use when opening text files from the project tree view.

PDF viewer: Choose a program to use when opening PDF files.

Show icons in menus: Enables icons in drop-down menus throughout the KiCad user interface.

Show scrollbars in editors: When enabled, scrollbars are displayed next to the editing canvases in each tool. When disabled, scrollbars are not shown.

Focus follows mouse between schematic and PCB editors: When enabled, the window under the mouse cursor will automatically become focused.

Icon scale: Sets the size of the icons used in menus and buttons throughout KiCad. Choose Automatic to pick an appropriate icon scale automatically based on your operating system settings.

Icon theme: Sets whether to use the icon theme designed for light window backgrounds or dark window backgrounds. The default setting of Automatic will choose the theme based on the lightness of the operating system window theme.

High-contrast mode dimming factor: Sets how much non-focused items are dimmed in high-contrast display mode.

Warp mouse to origin of moved object: When enabled, the mouse cursor will be repositioned (warped) to the origin of an object when you start a move command on that object.

First hotkey selects tool: When disabled, pressing the hotkey for a command such as Add Wire will immediately start the command at the current cursor location. When enabled, pressing the hotkey the first time will just select the Add Wire tool but will not immediately begin a wire.

Remember open files for next project launch: When enabled, KiCad will automatically re-open any files that were previously open when a project is re-opened.

Auto save: When editing schematics and board files, KiCad can automatically save your work periodically. Set to 0 to disable this feature.

File history size: Configure the number of entries in the list of recently-opened files

3D cache file duration: KiCad creates a cache of 3D models in order to speed up the 3D viewer. You can configure how long to keep this cache before deleting old files.

Automatically backup projects: When enabled, KiCad projects will be archived to ZIP files automatically according to the settings below. The archives will be stored in a subfolder of the project folder. Backups are created when saving files in the project.

Create backups when auto save occurs: When enabled, a backup will be created every time an automatic file save occurs (if the backup is permitted by the settings below). This setting has no effect if the auto save interval is set to 0 (disabled).

Maximum backups to keep: When creating a new backup, the oldest backup file will be deleted to keep the total number of backup files below this limit.

Maximum backups per day: When creating a new backup, the oldest backup file created on the current day will be deleted to stay below this limit.

Minimum time between backups: If backup is triggered (for example, by saving a board file), the backup will not be created if an existing backup file is newer than this limit.

Maximum total backup size: When creating a new backup file, the oldest backup files will be deleted to keep the total size of the backup files directory below this limit.

Center and warp cursor on zoom: When enabled, zooming using the hotkeys or mouse wheel will cause the view to be centered on the cursor location.

Use zoom acceleration: When enabled, scrolling the mouse wheel or touchpad faster will cause the zoom to change faster.

Zoom speed: Controls how much the zoom changes for a given amount of scrolling the mouse wheel or touchpad. Use Automatic to set a default value depending on your operating system.

Automatically pan while moving object: When enabled, the view can be panned while moving an object by moving close to the edge of the canvas.

Auto pan speed: Controls how fast the canvas pans while moving an object.

Mouse buttons: You can set the behavior of dragging the middle and right mouse buttons to zoom the view, pan the view, or have no effect. You can also set the behavior of dragging the left mouse button depending on whether or not any objects are already selected in the editing canvas.

Mouse wheel and touchpad scrolling: You can set the behavior of scrolling the mouse wheel or vertical motion of the touchpad while pressing certain modifier keys.

Pan left/right with horizontal movement: When enabled, you can pan the view using the touchpad or horizontal scroll wheel (if present on your mouse).

You can use this dialog to customize the hotkeys used to control KiCad. The hotkeys in the Common section are shared between every KiCad program. Hotkeys for each specific KiCad program are shown when that program is running. You can assign the same hotkey to a different action in different KiCad programs (for example, the schematic editor and the board editor), but you cannot assign a hotkey to more than one action in the same program.

There are many available commands, and so not all of them have a hotkey assigned by default. You can add a hotkey to any command by double-clicking on the command in the list. If you choose a hotkey that is already assigned to a different command, you can choose to use that hotkey on your chosen command, which will remove the hotkey assignment from the conflicting command.

Changes that you have made to hotkey assignments are shown with a * character at the end of the command name. You can undo changes to a specific command by right-clicking that command and selecting Undo Changes, or you can undo all changes with the button below the command list.

Importing hotkeys

Hotkey preferences are stored in .hotkeys files in the KiCad settings directory (see the Settings section for information about where the settings directory is on your operating system). If you have configured KiCad hotkeys the way you like on one computer, you can transfer that configuration to another computer by importing the appropriate .hotkeys file(s).

In KiCad, one can define paths using a path variable. A few path variables are internally defined by KiCad, and can be used to define paths for libraries, 3D shapes, etc.

C’est utile quand les chemins absolus ne sont pas connus ou sont susceptibles de changer (par exemple quand vous transférez le projet sur un autre ordinateur), et aussi quand plusieurs chemins partagent une racine commune. Considérez les éléments suivants qui peuvent tous être installés à différents endroits :

For instance, the path to the connect.pretty footprint library, when using the KICAD8_FOOTPRINT_DIR path variable, would be defined as ${KICAD8_FOOTPRINT_DIR}/connect.pretty.

The Preferences → Configure Paths…​ menu allows you to define paths for some built-in KiCad path variables, and add your own path variables to define personal paths, if needed.

The Preferences → Manage Symbol Libraries…​ menu lets you manage the list of symbol libraries (symbol library table).

Likewise, use the Preferences → Manage Footprint Libraries…​ menu to manage the list of footprint libraries (footprint library table).

For each type of library (symbol and footprint), there are 2 library tables: global and project specific. The global library table is located in the user configuration directory and contains a list of libraries available to all projects. The project-specific library table is optional and contains a list of libraries specific to the project. It is located in the project directory.

To add a new job, click the button under the Jobs list. In the Add New Job dialog that appears, select the desired type of job. You can filter which types of jobs are shown in the list by typing in the Filter textbox at the bottom.

When you select a job and press OK, the configuration dialog for that type of output will appear. Each output configuration dialog provides the same options you would have if you manually generated that type of output from the schematic or board editor.

When you accept the output configuration dialog, the job is added to the list of jobs, where you can optionally change the new job’s description from its default. To change a job’s description or settings later, right click the job in the list and select Edit Job Description or Edit Job Settings…​. Double clicking on a job also edits its settings. To remove a job, select the job and click the button. To reorder the list, select a job and move it up or down using the or buttons.

You cannot generate any outputs from a jobset until you add a jobset output configuration. To add a jobset output, click the button under the Outputs list. When the Add New Output dialog appears, select a type of output:

Once you have selected a type of output, the Output Options dialog appears.

Here you can select which jobs will be run as part of this jobset output, as well as the folder or archive name that will be used to store them. By default all jobs are enabled. You can also set a description for the output which will be displayed in the Outputs list. The output path controls where the files generated by the jobs will be saved. The path here can be absolute or relative to the project directory, and it can use path variables or certain text variables (${PROJECTNAME}, ${CURRENT_DATE}, and project text variables). Filenames defined in job configurations are relative to the jobset output directory or archive root.

When you click OK in this dialog, the new jobset output is added to the Outputs list. You can modify an existing jobset output configuration by clicking its button, or remove it by clicking its button.

After configuring your jobs and outputs, you can generate an individual set of outputs by clicking the Generate button for the desired output configuration. You can run all outputs at once by clicking the Generate All Outputs button.

If a jobset output runs and generates its outputs successfully, a blue check is shown that indicates the last run was successful. If a jobset output fails to complete successfully, a red exclamation point is shown to indicate the run was not successful. Clicking on the success/failure indicator will display the Job Output Run Log dialog, which displays the status of each job in the jobset output configuration. Clicking on a specific job will display the logged output from that job, if there is any.

The following types of jobs are available:

The File → New Project from Template menu will open the Project Template Selector dialog:

Un clic sur l’icône d’un modèle affiche ses informations, un clic sur le bouton de validation crée un nouveau projet. Les fichiers du modèle sont copiés dans le répertoire du projet et renommés pour correspondre au nom du projet.

KiCad looks for system templates in the path defined in the KICAD8_TEMPLATE_DIR path variable, and user templates in the path defined in KICAD_USER_TEMPLATE_DIR. However, you can browse for templates in an arbitrary directory using the Folder control at the top of the dialog.

A KiCad template is simply a directory containing the template project files, as well as some required metadata for the template in a subdirectory named meta. The name of the directory containing the template files determines the name of the template. When you create a project from a template, KiCad copies the template files to the new project directory, renaming them to match the new project name as described below.

All files in the template are copied, with two exceptions:

The meta directory must contain an HTML file named info.html, which is displayed in the KiCad template browser and should contain basic information describing the template. Basic HTML features are supported, including images. Any images referenced by info.html should also be stored in the meta directory.

The <title> tag determines the name of the template that is displayed during template selection. Note that the project template name will be cut off if it’s too long. This display name does not need to be the same as the template directory name.

Here is a sample info.html file:

Finally, meta can optionally contain an image named icon.png, which will be used as the template’s icon in the template selection dialog. The icon should be a 64 x 64 pixel PNG image.

The actions below are available in the KiCad Project Manager. Hotkeys can be assigned to any of these actions in the Hotkeys section of the preferences.