*.Outjob Consistancy - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: mysteryname
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 20, 2013, 05:59:00 am
content: Hello all,I have altium on multiple computers and I have started to create a *.Outjob file to bring some more consistency with the outputs that I have been creating.Outjobs have been great in the content that I have been exporting except for one item.. The layer colours.Depending if I'm on my laptop or my desktop I have a different colour scheme for these computers. I have created a job file to export to PDF and other. However the outjob pulls the current colour scheme I have on the current computer that I'm working on.Does altium allow for a Simple colour export scheme?The version of altium major build is 10. I don't know if the later versions have this feature.Thank youMysteryname.

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2013, 05:20:36 pm
content: What application are you viewing the outputs that you want colored? All the gerbers have normal file extensions. So if you configure the colors in the viewer to correspond to that layer type, you are set. I don't know of any color based export. I'm running whatever the latest build of 13 is.

author: mysteryname
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 09, 2013, 06:54:52 am
content: It was all within Altium,For example, I would do a design on one computer and export a assembly drawing onto a PDF, it will have a set range of colours. However if I export on the second computer, the user preferences will be slightly different. (ie. Different shade of red for the top layer)These changes would be exported, making the same PCB file appear different on the two PDFs once printed out.We have Altium 10 not 13.Thank you.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 09, 2013, 09:36:11 pm
content: I hope this helps. Unfortunately, you have to click it every time on different PCs.But I think this is nothing compared to the BOM export mess.

author: mysteryname
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 06, 2013, 01:49:31 am
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on September 09, 2013, 09:36:11 pmIt is a mess, I had found that button thank you. However when you click that it does not import the mechanical layers colours either.Ahhh, there is no victory with Altium.It looks like it has to be done manually on each computer, which realistically is not a massive pain but users do have their own preferences in the colour scheme, I like mine quite dark and it does not translate the the PDF that well, so I load a lighter colour preference file and then export... each time..Cheers though

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2013, 05:10:38 am
content: The color preferences are local to the machine. Ad14 will allow for all that stuff to be stored on a shared folder. That will bring all the machines in sync with each other.But it looks like you dont want that as you want to muck with the colors on each individual machine.

author: mysteryname
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 06, 2013, 02:26:11 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 06, 2013, 05:10:38 amThis sounds like a great feature! for the sole purpose of exporting PDFs of the copper and other layers. The colours need to be the same from computer to computer.Quote from: free_electron on October 06, 2013, 05:10:38 amOf course, My laptop has a different colour profile to my monitor at home.It's a odd situation, But what happens for the companies that have multiple people that use altium and require consistency between each of the exports from altium?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2013, 07:46:53 pm
content: what do you mean with consistency ? i always export in monochrome.

author: mysteryname
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 01:37:09 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 06, 2013, 07:46:53 pmMonochrome would make this issue go away. However, exporting in full colour is what I'm trying to achieve, if one computer has one colour scheme eg, Dark red for the copper and dark yellow for the silk screen and another computer has another colour scheme, Bright red for the top copper.When exporting, the colour that is exported is the same as what is displayed on the monitor.I opened the *.Outjob file with a text editor and found there are no colours stored in the file and currently I have a list of numbers (for each colour, 3==black) written down that I have to manually check to ensure that the export is consistent with previous exports. It is niche, however there seems to be no support for a consistent colour export.The original question is to see if altium had this feature, but sadly it seems that it does not.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 09:45:26 am
content: Perhaps I'm missing something (like, a copy of Altium) but surely the layer colours are loadable en mass via themes or profiles? Thus you have a profile for normal work, and when you want to export or 'be company compatible' you load up the company profile and do whatever needs doing. Then switch back to your own preference?I have to say that that seems sensible to me. My own preference is for solder side tracks to be red, component side blue (there are sound reasons for this, not least because that's how it always used to be and the vice versa scheme is a johnny come lately pervertion). It would Really Bad if some board I was looking at forced another scheme on me - I would easily get confused about which layer is which.

author: jamiechi
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 16, 2013, 02:30:42 am
content: With the PCB document open, select the menu "Design/Board Layers and Colors...". On the left side of the View Configurations Dialog, (with Board Layers and Colors tab selected,) you can select existing View Configurations or create new ones. (See lower left Actions area.)The files are normally kept in your Templates folder but you can save them anywhere. The file can be copied and loaded on other computers.For example: My PCB View.config_2dsimpleAs far as I can tell, only the colors are saved. The Mechanical Layer names are saved in the .PCBDOC document.I am using version 13 of Altium. I don't know how far back this information is applicable for.I hope this helps.