[sdiy] PCB Design Software?

[Dave Manley]

Tim Parkhurst wrote:
> On Nov 16, 2007 10:05 AM, Derek Holzer <derek at umatic.nl> wrote:
>> KiCad works on Mac, Windows & Linux:
>>
>> http://www.lis.inpg.fr/realise_au_lis/kicad/
>>
>> It's good to see that Magic Smoke uses it "commercially", since most of
>> the people I know are using it only for their own personal projects. Big
>> PCB houses want to see things in very specific (i.e. Eagle) formats,
>> which means that certain things become "industry standard" (like
>> Photoshop in the Graphic Design world), but that doesn't mean that other
>> softwares won't work for you under different circumstances (like
>> self-etching). But if you plan to send things out to have them
>> manufactured, it pays to look into what kind of file formats the
>> manufacturer will work with.
>>
>> d.
>>
> 
> Yeah, I just output Gerbers and a Drill File and throw those at the
> PCB house. Produced a few hundred boards so far, so it works for me.
> Now granted, my only other PCB software experience was with an older
> version of PadsPCB, so I don't have a lot of basis for comparison with
> other packages.
> 
> 
> Tim (are you experienced?) Servo

Do any of the mentioned tools handle back annotation from the pcb to the 
schematic?  For example if you want to resequence the reference 
designators after layout so that they increment left-to-right, 
top-to-bottom.

How about plane fills (or flooding or copper pouring, etc)?  Any issues 
with any of these tools?

Thanks,
Dave