I'm starting to use Altium Designer. Can't find how to export drawings to picture (JPEG,GIF) format. I do File->Export I found mystic menu Add Exporter that gives me nothing. I'm not sure I'm on correct way. How to export pictures in Altium Designer?
Electronic – Export drawings in Altium Designer
altium
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A little late to the show here...but I think the missing step is that when you produce a PDF output from Altium you have to specify that you wish the the PDF to take the PCB Page Size and Orientation Source from the Page Setup Dialog.
You can find this option within an output job > output containers > your PDF output > Advanced button at the bottom > Bottom left corner.
By default this option is set to Source Document and so you will find that changing the page setup will not have the scaling or orientation effects you were hoping for.
Hope that helps anyone else!
I have downloaded the design you are dealing with. The gerber files, all layer files have .PHO extension.
Import gerbers into Altium
If you rename the files as follows you will be able to open them in Altium:
- Layer4.pho \$ \longrightarrow \$ Layer4.GBL, this is the bottom layer
- Layer1.pho \$ \longrightarrow \$ Layer1.GTL, this is the top layer
- Layer2.pho \$ \longrightarrow \$ Layer2.GP1, GND plane 1
- Layer3.pho \$ \longrightarrow \$ Layer3.GP2, GND plane 2
- SoldermaskBottom.pho \$ \longrightarrow \$ SoldermaskBottom.GBS
- SoldermaskTop.pho \$ \longrightarrow \$ SoldermaskTop.GTS
I have identified the layers by the PDF appendix. For Pastemask (GBP, GBT) and Silkscreen layers you should search for their Altium extensions.
These modified files can be dragged and dropped into Altium, example for Top layer:
This way all layer files are easily openable in Altium.
Export TopLayer gerber into PCB document file
- Select Layer1.GTL tab in Altium
Select the Menu → Tables → Layers Order option. Following dialog will be shown: Fill the cells as below.
Enable the Export to PCB option as follows: Menu → Tools → Netlist → Extract.
"After a netlist has been extracted from your CAM data, the File » Export » Export to PCB command becomes enabled" source
Now, select Menu → File → Export → Export to PCB and a new PCB document will be opened with the Top Layer.
Result:
Best Answer
First step is to generate a smart PDF from your project, File \$ \rightarrow \$ Smart PDF. The generated file will contain all of your drawings starting from schematics to PCB layouts, in vector graphical format.
The next step is to dowload a software like this, which is a PDF to GIF converter.
This software extracts all images from the PDF and one by one converts them to gifs.
Here is the result from one of my project, all files converted:
The quality is satisfying, this one is a [maximum zoom in] in a Firefox browser:
This method ensures better quality and faster then making and saving single screenshots from every sheet.