Hi Bob, Thanks for getting back. I had to get this PCB manufactured, a double sided PTH board with Silk screen. The PCB has a PDF file also alongwith which is actually printable, but has Red and Blue colors in it for the Top and Bottom Sides. The manufacturer whom I contacted, wanted the PDF file to have a) In Black and White b) Board Dimension After that, he said again: "We recd the PDF Files. We cannot he Process of this Board. PCB Size is not mentioned any where, please provide for Gerber file with Specifications." I figured it was a bit out of my reach, So I contacted one company whom I work for in another area, but they got back stating that they are tied to Altium, rather than PADS. They said they will try to get in touch with their PCB manufacturer, while their CAD guys could take a look at it. Though he was a bit doubtful on that front, since they have already put quite a lot of pressure on them on a few other projects. So, I played around a bit: Importing it directly into some of the known or used CAD programs at my end. Eagle, Orcad, Altium .. None could import .. Altium stated it could do till about version 6 and did exit. Eventually, I tried looking for a PADS viewer. I did find one. Unfortunatel= y the viewer could just view the file. I could not export or save it any othe= r format or whatsoever. I started looking for an evaluation version (9.5), got one. The hard part now lies ahead is to generate the output files. The 9.5 version directly opens the .pcb files as though there was no proble= m at all.. ;-) The user interface with PADS looks very clean and unclutterred, but things that looked (at least to me) simple with other CAD packages, look very complicated. I lost a bit of my breath due to that. ;-) #1 struggling to find how to add a board dimension in PADS. #2 wondering how to output the resultant file in a way which I can send the Gerber to my PCB manufacturer. (The term Gerber seems a bit complicated to me since I don't know what format he wants. Though I have requested that part of the information from = him) Any advice will prove very useful. Thanks, Manu On Thu, Jul 4, 2013 at 10:23 PM, Bob Blick wrote: > Hi Manu, > > The ascii files are the ones that will be easiest to import. But 9 is > the latest version I think, and there were lots of changes. I am not > sure since I don't use anything that new. But even using files between > versions of PADS it's pretty much always been required to use the ascii > files. > > One final confusion is that sometimes the .asc suffix has been used for > forward-back annotation etc. So it may not even be a schematic, just a > partial netlist. > > Your best hope is to find someone with PADS 9, open the binary (pcb, > sch) files, and then export them. There is a guy I hire once in a while > who could do it but he has a half day minimum. > > Friendly regards, > > Bob > > On Wed, Jul 3, 2013, at 12:17 PM, Manu Abraham wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I am looking at some files with .pcb and .sch extension files, >> which I can't seem to open with Altium, Orcad or Eagle. >> >> One of the files in there, a .err file contains this at the top of the >> text file >> >> *PADS-ECO-V9.4-METRIC* >> >> *REMARK* -- Mictor_Breakout.pcb -- Tue Sep 25 14:30:23 2012 >> >> So, I guess these .pcb and .sch files were done with PADS. >> >> Eventually, I tried with Altium to import these files, but it was >> unable to complete the operation, since it was looking for .asc files >> >> I have to .asc files also in there. Opening it in a text editor, it says >> >> !PADS-POWERPCB-V9.0-MILS! NETLIST FILE FROM PADS LOGIC V9.4 >> >> So, It states more or less that it has been worked on with a PADS >> Cad application, but trying to import the .asc files with Altium doesn't >> help either. >> >> I don't have PADS at my end. I am wondering whether I can import it >> some way into Eagle or Orcad or Altium ? >> >> Any ideas ? >> >> >> Thanks, >> >> Manu > > -- > http://www.fastmail.fm - Access your email from home and the web > > -- > http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .