Working with a Drill Table Object on a Draftsman Document in Altium Designer

This document is no longer available beyond version 21. Information can now be found here: Drill Table for version 24

 

Parent page: Draftsman Objects

A placed Drill Table with hole entries grouped by size.A placed Drill Table with hole entries grouped by size.

Summary

A Draftsman Drill Table is an automatically generated table object that contains board drill symbols and data. The Drill Table, combined with Draftsman's Drill Drawing View, provides both tabular and graphic information for the board fabrication process.

Each Drill Table entry, representing a specified type of drill hole (and matching Symbol), can include a range of hole information such as its size, plated construction and population count. The table's visual style and data content, including the symbol used, is configurable in (or via) the Properties panel. 

Availability

A Drill Table is available for placement in a PCB project Draftsman document from the Editor as follows:

  • Choose the Place » Drill Table command from the main menu.
  • Right-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 » Drill Table from the context menu.
  • Click the Drill Table () entry in tables drop-down menu () on the Drawing Annotations toolbar (View » Toolbars » Drawing Annotations to enable).

Placement

After launching the command, drill hole data is retrieved from the source PCB file, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and the generated Drill Table is attached to the cursor. Move the cursor to the desired position then click to confirm the placement.

Note that hole data is retrieved from the PCB document specified in the Source section of the Properties panel when in Document Options mode. To change the panel to that mode, deselect all objects in the design space (i.e. click in free space).

Graphical Editing

The position of a placed Drill Table 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.

The default settings for the Drill Table are available in the Draftsman - Defaults page of the Preferences dialog.

Non-Graphical Editing

Properties page: Drill Table Properties

The non-graphical method of editing a Drill Table is available in the Draftsman Properties panel, which provides a range of editable properties, style and design content settings for placed Draftsman objects.

General and Columns tab of the Properties panel when a Drill Table is selected.  General and Columns tab of the Properties panel when a Drill Table is selected.

To open the Properties panel and access the properties of a placed Drill Table:

  • After selecting the Drill Table object, 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 Drill Table object in the design space.
  • Right-click on the Drill Table then select Item Properties from the context menu.

If the Properties panel is already active, click on the Drill Table object to access its properties in the panel.

The Drill Table properties can be accessed prior to entering placement mode from the Draftsman - Defaults page of the Preferences dialog. This allows the default properties for the Drill Table object to be changed, which will be applied when placing subsequent Drill Tables.

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.

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Note

The features available depend on your Altium product access level. Compare features included in the various levels of Altium Designer Software Subscription and functionality delivered through applications provided by the Altium 365 platform.

If you don’t see a discussed feature in your software, contact Altium Sales to find out more.

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