Three different areas where you can set the units in Altium Design’s schematic preferences There are also different settings for PCB measurement units as you can see below. In the schematic, you can set up behaviors for just about everything from sheet templates to how it is going to zoom into PCB library components. The preferences dialog box gives you the ability to set up how you want the different tools in Altium Designer to behave when you first open them. Opening the Preferences dialog in Altium Designer You can also access these preferences with a schematic sheet open by going to the “Tools” pulldown menu and selecting “Preferences.” These preferences can be found by clicking on the gear wheel in the upper right corner of the Altium Designer as shown below. When you first open up Altium Designer, before you even move to the snap grid, you can set up some preferences for working in the schematic. Switching Units in the Preferences Switching from MM to Mils in the Schematic You can see some of my favorite hotkeys in this article.Īside from these options, users can use the Preferences dialog to set or toggle units in the Schematic Editor, or using the Properties panel in the PCB Editor. In addition to the two hotkey options in the PCB editor, Altium Designer helps automate a huge number of tasks with many other hotkeys.

Use the View -> Toggle Units menu option.Press 'V' followed by 'U' on the keyboard.In the PCB Editor - There are three options:.In the Schematic Editor - Change units with the View -> Toggle Units menu option.These are the standard units used in most component datasheets and mechanical drawings, as well as in Gerber files used for PCB fabrication. For anyone who wants to switch units while working in the design, the fastest way to do this depends on if you are in the PCB Editor or the Schematic editor. Fastest Way to Switch Units During DesignĪltium Designer offers two unit systems: mm and mil. Users can do this live (while working on the PCB layout) or from the Preferences dialog in both the schematics and PCB. Inside Altium Designer, there are simple ways to set units as you work on the PCB layout, as well as in the schematic where circuits are being created. The short guide below shows how to switch from mm to mil in the Schematic Editor and in the PCB Editor. Your PCB layout needs to be an accurate reflection of your final design and should follow a specified unit scale.

Altium measure distance