Altium Designer Documentation
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((Design Objects Reference))_AD
Draftsman Design Objects in Altium Designer
Working with a Bill of Materials Object on a Draftsman Document in Altium Designer
This document is no longer available beyond version 21. Information can now be found here: Bill of Materials for version 25
Parent page: Draftsman Objects
A Bill Of Materials table split over two BOM objects. In the above example, the BOM content is filtered to include the items from the Top side Board Assembly View.
Summary
A Draftsman Bill Of Materials (BOM) is an automatically generated table object that lists the physical assembly items in a PCB design. The table data is directly derived from the project PCB file or if one is present in the current project, an Active BOM document. A Draftsman BOM Table can also represent the constituent items from a specified design Variation or a placed Board Assemby View.
The BOM table's visual style and included data content is configurable in (or via) the Properties panel.
Availability
A Bill Of Materials table is available for placement in a PCB project Draftsman document from the Editor as follows:
- Choose the Place » Bill Of Materials command from the main menus.
- Click the
button in the table objects drop down menu on the Active Bar located at the top of the design space. Click and hold an Active Bar button to access other related commands. Once a command has been used, it will become the topmost item on that section of the Active Bar.
- Right-click in the drawing design space then select Place » Bill Of Materials from the context menu.
- Click the Bill Of Materials () entry in the tables drop-down menu (
) on the Drawing Annotations toolbar (View » Toolbars » Drawing Annotations to enable).
Placement
After launching the command, BOM data is retrieved from the source PCB file or Active BOM document, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and the generated BOM table is attached to the cursor. Move the cursor to the desired position then click to confirm the placement.
Graphical Editing
The position of a placed Bill Of Materials may be graphically changed by selecting the table in the design space then dragging it to a new location. Note that the table cannot be graphically resized, but will automatically scale to accommodate the font style/size as specified in the Properties panel.
To help manage the vertical size of a BOM table in a Draftsman document, the listing sequence can be split over a number of table objects – see Split BOM Tables.
To help manage the vertical size of a BOM table in a Draftsman document, the listing sequence can be split over a number of table objects – see Split BOM Tables.
Non-Graphical Editing
Properties page: Bill Of Materials Properties
The non-graphical method of editing a Bill Of Materials table is available in the Draftsman Properties panel, which provides a range of editable properties, style and design content settings for placed Draftsman objects.
The Properties panel when a Bill Of Materials table is selected.
To open the Properties panel and access the properties of a placed Bill Of Materials:
- After selecting the Bill Of Materials, select the Properties panel from the Panels button at the bottom right of the design space or select View » Panels » Properties from the main menus.
- Double-click on the Bill Of Materials in the design space.
- Right-click on the Bill Of Materials then select Item Properties from the context menu.
If the Properties panel is already active, click on the Bill Of Materials to access its properties in the panel.
Editing Multiple Objects
The Properties panel supports multiple object editing, where the property settings that are identical in all currently selected objects can be modified.