| FreePCB User Guide | Version 1.2

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5. PCB Layout (continued)

5.10 Board Outline

The board outline represents the outline of the PCB (duh!). In FreePCB, it consists of a closed polyline (or polygon) consisting of 3 or more sides, with corners between the sides. The sides may be straight line segments or arcs. An arc is one quadrant of an ellipse whose major axis is parallel to either x or y. The advantage of using this limited definition of an arc is that the arc is completely defined by the position of its endpoints and a direction, which may be clockwise or counterclockwise. A sample board outline consisting of 10 corners and 10 sides is shown below. Note that two of the sides are arcs.

The board outline is created by selecting Add > Boar d Outline. There can only be one board outline in a project, so if one already exists you will be prompted to delete it. The cursor will change into a cross-hair. Place the starting corner by left-clicking the mouse. You will then find yourself dragging a rubber-band representation of the first side. Left-clicking again will place the second corner, and you will be rubber-banding the second side. Continue until you have placed the last corner, then right-click to close the polyline by drawing a side back to the starting corner.

While drawing, you can change the style of the current side from straight to an arc by using the appropriate function keys (F1 for straight, F2 for a clockwise arc and F3 for a counterclockwise arc). The style that you select will remain in effect until you change it. Note that arcs become straight lines if the end-points are vertical or horizontal.

Placement of the corners will be controlled by the Placement Grid, which should be set to an appropriate value before starting to draw the outline. Placement will also be controlled by the Snap Angle. If the Snap Angle is 45 degrees, then arcs will be quadrants of a circle.

Once the outline has been created, you can edit it in the following ways:

- You can reposition a corner by clicking on it to select it. A small white square will appear around the corner indicating that it has been selected, and the status bar will indicate which corner has been selected. Then press F4 ("Move Corner") to start dragging the corner to a new position. Or press F1 ("Set Position") to pop up a dialog which will let you set the position of the corner explicitly, as shown below:

- You can add a corner by clicking on a side to select it. It will turn white to indicate that it has been selected. Then press F4 ("Add Corner") and you will be dragging a new corner, with rubber-band sides to the adjacent corners. Left-click to place it. This only works with straight sides, so if the side is an arc then you will have to change it to a straight line first (see below).
- You can delete a corner by selecting it and pressing F5 ("Delete Corner"). The corner will disappear, and the adjacent sides will be replaced by one side between the adjacent corners.
- You can change the style of a side by selecting it and then pressing F1 ("Straight Line"), F2 ("Arc CW") or F3 ("Arc CCW").
- The entire outline can be deleted by selecting any side or corner and pressing F7 ("Delete Outline").

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