How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

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rick.curl
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Posts: 167
Joined: 14 Jun 2010, 09:46

How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#1 Post by rick.curl » 15 Jan 2020, 06:21

I need to put the registered trademark symbol ("R" in a circle) on the silkscreen for a PCB, but aside from making a small image file I can't find a way to do it. It's usually ALT+0176, but that doesn't seem to work.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

-Rick

amshh
Posts: 78
Joined: 20 Jan 2014, 07:23

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#2 Post by amshh » 15 Jan 2020, 07:36

Objects >> Place Picture
Select a frame rectangle with the mouse and then select your image file.
Depending on your "Current shape and Text layer" you may not see anything because the image is placed somewhere which is invisible.
Adjust this setting before inserting the image or find the image, right click on it, >>Properties and choose the desired layer.

rick.curl
Expert
Posts: 167
Joined: 14 Jun 2010, 09:46

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#3 Post by rick.curl » 15 Jan 2020, 07:49

Thanks. That is the "workaround" that I am using. Surely there is a way to place a symbol without having to make a graphic file first.

octal
Posts: 52
Joined: 08 Jan 2012, 23:55

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#4 Post by octal » 17 Jan 2020, 10:22

The easiest way I found is to use a Truetype font.
1- In Windows, launch charmap application (in start button>>Execute>> type charmap)
2- In Charmap select the font you want, let's say ARIAL
3- in the char map, choose your (R) char (double click), in Arial, it's the Alt+0174, and click COPY button

go to Diptrace
4- Select the text tool, and click where you want to write your symbol.
5- in the properties panel, select Font Type to TrueType instead of Vector
6- Select in the font combo (... under FontType), choose the SAME FONT you selected in charmap (Arial in our case) and set it's height to the size you want (choose the right size because if you rework the truetype string size in diptrace using mouse the rendering will be bad.
7- type Ctrl+V (to paste the (R) char)
8 - Click enter to validate the string object in Diptrace

Now click on your (R) symbol and choose the right layer for it (Top Silk).

I use this technique also with WINGDING and Symbol fonts in order to insert other amazing symbols in my PCBs. Vectorial TTF fonts renders far better than converted images. I reserve images to big logos. (Even for company logo, I created a TTF font and inserted vector of my logo as a single char in my TTF font, and now I use it directly, this gives better results than inserting images).

Tomg
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Joined: 20 Jun 2015, 07:39

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#5 Post by Tomg » 18 Jan 2020, 06:25

Another method would involve making your own symbols in vector font sizes from 2 to 72 on the Top Silk layer and saving as "patterns" in one of your custom pattern libraries. Just place the required size pattern onto the PCB where needed, right-click on it and select "Ungroup Component" in the pop-up menu. (This will eliminate the reference designator and prevent it from being counted as a component.) Here's a sample of how some of the "patterns" might appear in the PCB Editor (each symbol is a vector drawing so any jaggies that might be visible in the screen shot below would be the result of the photo editing process used to produce the related *.gif file)...
ct2.gif
ct2.gif (25.76 KiB) Viewed 766 times
p.s. Silk line widths smaller than 0.005" (0.127mm) are frowned upon by many board houses, so I did a little "fudging" with font sizes 2 and 3 to make the line widths and spacing meet minimum requirements. The following zip folder contains a revised pattern library with a slight name change ("copyrights_trademarks.asc" in the DipTrace ASCII file format) with all of the previously-mentioned sizes. (The file that I originally posted was incomplete.) This file can be imported into the Pattern Editor...
copyrights_trademarks.zip
(8.36 KiB) Downloaded 54 times
Last edited by Tomg on 21 Jan 2020, 15:43, edited 2 times in total.
Tom

rick.curl
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Posts: 167
Joined: 14 Jun 2010, 09:46

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#6 Post by rick.curl » 20 Jan 2020, 02:55

Hi Octal-
Good to hear from you. It's been a LONG time...
Thanks for the suggestion, but I can't get it to work. I carefully followed your instructions, but when I do Ctrl-V I always get a dash instead of the symbol I copied. don't know what's wrong. I'll fiddle with it more tomorrow.

-Rick

rick.curl
Expert
Posts: 167
Joined: 14 Jun 2010, 09:46

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#7 Post by rick.curl » 20 Jan 2020, 03:00

Hi Tom-
I appreciate the solution (and even the .ASC upload!!!). That worked fine and has solved the problem.
Now I'm going to have to add something to my wish list for Diptrace- I addition to place shape, text, and picture, I'd like to have a SYMBOL option.

Thanks for the solution!

-Rick

octal
Posts: 52
Joined: 08 Jan 2012, 23:55

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#8 Post by octal » 20 Jan 2020, 05:08

Hi Rick,
read again my previous message, you'll effectively got a dash when you paste the char, but this will change (transform to correct char) to the selected char once you select the correct Truetype font in the properties in the right pannel.

rick.curl
Expert
Posts: 167
Joined: 14 Jun 2010, 09:46

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#9 Post by rick.curl » 20 Jan 2020, 05:38

Yep - I did read your message carefully, and I did select Arial font both in the character map and in Diptrace, but no joy.

Probably just something weird about my computer.

-Rick

Alex
Technical Support
Posts: 3897
Joined: 13 Jun 2010, 23:43

Re: How to put the trademark symbol on silk layer

#10 Post by Alex » 21 Jan 2020, 22:57

Hi Rick,

I tried to create registered trademark symbol (Alt+0174) in text and it works. Please notice, Unicode symbols work for true type fonts only. Also notice, you can enter Alt+code on keyboard with numeric keypad. If there is no numeric keypad on your keyboard, you can find Unicode symbols on web site https://unicode-table.com/en/00AE/ , copy and paste it to DipTrace text field.

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