Offsheet Connector

Modified by Susan Riege on Aug 17, 2018
Contents

Parent page: Schematic Objects

Off Sheet Connectors are used to create connections between schematic sheets.

Summary

An off sheet connector is an electrical design primitive. Off sheet connectors are used to connect nets across multiple schematic sheets that are descended from the same parent sheet symbol.

Availability

Off sheet connectors are available for placement in the Schematic Editor only by clicking Home | Circuit Elements |  from the main menus.

Placement

After launching the command, the cursor will change to a cross-hair and you will enter off sheet connector placement mode with an off sheet connector floating on the cursor:

  • Press Tab to open the Off Sheet Connector dialog. The Net property will be the active control in the dialog and the existing text selected ready for editing. Type in the new name then press Enter to close the dialog.
  • If the off sheet connector requires rotation, press the Spacebar to rotate it in 90° increments. Press the X or Y keys to flip the off sheet connector along the X-axis or Y-axis respectively.
  • Position the off sheet connector so that its electrical hotspot (the end held by the cursor) touches the wire to which you want to connect it, then click or press Enter to effect placement.
  • Continue placing further off sheet connectors, or right-click or press Esc to exit placement mode.

If the Net property of the off sheet connector is entered before it is placed and the value entered has a numeric ending, each subsequent off sheet connector will auto-increment this numeric value. This behavior is configured in the Auto-Increment During Placement options on the Schematic - General page of the Preferences dialog. For off sheet connectors, only the Primary field applies; the Secondary field applies when the object has multiple fields, such as a Pin.

Graphical Editing

The off sheet connector can be edited graphically, using what is known as in-place editing. To edit an off sheet connector string in-place, click once to select, pause for a second, then click a second time to enter edit mode.

 Click once to select the string.

 Pause, then click a second time to enter in-place edit mode.

 Here the string has been selected, ready to type in a replacement string.

The Off Sheet Connector can be edited in-place.

An object that has its Locked property enabled cannot be selected or graphically edited. Double-click on the locked object directly then disable the Locked property to graphically edit the object.

Non-Graphical Editing

The following methods of non-graphical editing are available:

Via an Associated Properties Dialog

Dialog page: Off Sheet Connector

This method of editing uses the Off Sheet Connector dialog to modify the properties of an off sheet connector object.

The Off Sheet Connector dialog

The dialog can be accessed during placement by pressing the Tab key.

After placement, the dialog can be accessed in one of the following ways:

  • Double-click on the placed off sheet connector object.
  • Place the cursor over the off sheet connector object, right-click then choose Properties from the context menu.

Via the SCH Inspector Panel

Panel page: SCH Inspector

The SCH Inspector panel enables you to interrogate and edit the properties of one or more design objects in the active document.

 

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