Accessing, Defining & Managing System Preferences for Altium Designer

 

Your Altium Designer software provides a central location from where you can set up various preferences across different functional areas. These are global system settings that apply across projects and relevant documents.

Configuration of preferences is performed from within the Preferences dialog, accessed by clicking on the  control at the top-right of the main design window.

The Preferences dialog - control central for setting global system and editor-specific settings.The Preferences dialog - control central for setting global system and editor-specific settings.

The Preferences dialog provides a number of useful tools to ensure your set of preferences is just as you require, including:

  • Ability to import preferences defined in a previous instance or version of the software.
  • Ability to save preferences to and load preferences from a Preferences file (*.DXPPrf).
  • Ability to set the options and controls on the active preferences page, or all pages, back to their defaults.

If you have a Workspace, you can formally release your Altium Design Preferences into a target Item (and revision thereof) in that Workspace. Once the preferences set has been released, the preferences can be reused across installations of the software.

When connected to a Workspace, a green icon () appears next to Data Management Preferences pages that are subject to the Workspace's control.

Preferences are clustered into categories. Click on an entry within a category on the left-hand side of the dialog to present the detailed page for that area on the right. Use the controls and options available on a loaded page to configure your preferences for that area of the software as required. This could be a mixture of satisfying company policy and your preferred working environment. More information about the various pages of preferences can be found below.

System Preferences

Data Management Preferences

Schematic Preferences

PCB Editor Preferences

Text Editors Preferences

Scripting System Preferences

CAM Editor Preferences

Simulation Preferences

Draftsman Preferences

Multi-board Schematic Preferences

Multi-board Assembly Preferences

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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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