Homebrew PCBs

Hi Mike,

I suggest using the Inkscape vector graphics program.  It is
open-source, runs on Windows, Linux, Mac etc.

  http://inkscape.org

I have also used a commercial vector graphics program - an old version
of Adobe Illustrator which I bought years ago.

PDF files vary considerably and it is possible that one or both of these
programs may not do exactly what you want - in that there may be errors.

If you have any trouble with a PDF editor producing not-quite-right
results, an alternative approach may be to render the PDF to a bit-map -
which itself might introduce errors.  For instance the similarly open
source Gimp bitmap graphics program can open a PDF and convert it to bitmap:

  http://www.gimp.org

From this you can easily rotate, flip, copy and paste etc. without any
errors.  I think there are also various free (beer, not source) and
shareware Windows programs which will convert PDFs to TIFF (bitmap).

I can't remember now which of these I used.  However, I had a situation
with my Proteus ARES PCB software:

  http://www.labcenter.com

where I wanted multiple (tiled) copies of a small single-sided PCB image
with small dots for the hole centres to help with drilling.  If I used
its inbuilt Gerber editor to do this, the dots would disappear.  I
recall using the draft mode to get the dots.

The answer was to export a single copy of the board as a PDF and use one
of the above programs to replicate it so the laser-printed phototool had
12 copies.

  - Robin     http://www.firstpr.com.au/pcb-diy/


On 2013-01-16 12:21 PM, michael tenore wrote:
> Hi!
>  
> Does anyone know of a Freeeware or cheap PDF editor that I can use
> to flip the file contents to convert the image to Mirror image.
> My prnter driver does not have the ability to print in mirror image.
>  
> 73
> mike