KiCAD – Finding or Creating Footprint for SP10T Switch

As noted in the first comment the DRC is doing precisley its job, and you should not ignore it. DRCs are somewhat magic and sometimes when they encounter an error they don't actually check for other errors, so to have an error free design... You need to have and error free design, and this does not include ignored errors.

The DRC is yelling at you because you have created three separate pads, assigned to each of them a separate number, then just stuck them one on top of the other. This violates the minimum clearance allowed between pads. What can you do about that?

• Ignore the DRC error. That's probably the worst way to deal with it. Try to ignore your partner when there's some problem and see what happens.
• Make some custom clearances for the specific footprint. That works, the DRC would stop complaining but you still have to connect three pins on the schematic, that's just awful.
• In each pad setting (press 'e' when hovering on the pad) assign the three pads the same number, i.e. 1. Now that's a solution: the three pads correspond to one pin, and they actually correspond to one single physical pad

The third solution, actually, The Solution is what you want to use when drawing strange pads with strange shapes. Imagine a LDO SMD regulator with the tab connected to the central pin, the land pattern would look like a big square (thermal tab) connected to a rectangle going to the middle pin. You can do that with two overlapping smd pads that have the same pin number.

Disclaimer: when you are drawing the footprint for a large microcontroller that has many ground and vcc pins you might think you can assign all the corresponding pads the same number in order to have only one pin on the schematic. That is a bad idea\$^{\text{TM}}\$. When you draw the tracks on the board the DRC will assume that all that pads are somewhat physically connected together and won't force you to connect all of them. Of course they are physically connected but you should provide power (and a decoupling cap) to each of them.

So the rule is: you can give different pads the same pin number if and only if these pads overlap in some way OR you really, really, really know what you're doing.

Short answer: Yes. @Indraneel's comment is exactly correct.

Long answer with steps:

First create a new library into which you want to save the modified footprint. You do this from the File menu.

Next, choose where you want to save the library and specify what type of library you are creating. A project library is accessible only from the project you have open. A global library is accessible from all projects on your computer. As a general rule, I only create project libraries. I usually copy the global footprint into my local library when I use it in my projects.

After you have created the new library, it will be listed in the Tree on the left. Next, you find the footprint you'd like to copy and right-click on it's name. Then select "Save As"

You will then be presented with a list of the footprint libraries. You select your newly created library and click OK.