Data Sheet

PCB Layout
99
This is a very important technique worth mastering as it allows you to easily block
select and then perform actions on (move, delete, etc.) groups of objects.
Having centered our board edge in the Work area we can shrink the work area to a suitable
size. From the Technology Menu, select the Board Properties command and then set to
something like 175mm by 100mm, such that the resulting work area forms a reasonably
boundary to the board.
Setting the board properties
We saw briefly when placing the board edge that we can specify a temporary origin and use
that to place items of a given size (or to place items a specific distance away from our origin
point for example). We can however, also specify the location of the Output Origin. This is the
default origin used whenever we do not explicitly set a temporary origin and is shown on the
layout as a small blue marker.
It can be useful to move this to a corner of the board and particularly so if we have mechanical
constraints that we need to consider during placement (e.g. mounting hole locations). For our
design, we’ll move the origin to the bottom left corner of the board edge.
1) From the Output menu choose the Set Output Origin command.