CCADAlts

How to move an Altium Designer design to KiCad

Checked against the official docs on

KiCad imports Altium boards (.PcbDoc) and schematics (.SchDoc) as standalone documents. Import the board first, save the project, then bring in each schematic sheet.

  1. Open the PCB Editor on its own

    Start KiCad's PCB Editor standalone, without opening the project manager first.

  2. Import the board

    Choose File → Import → Non-KiCad Board File and select your .PcbDoc file (Altium Designer). Circuit Maker (.CMPcbDoc) and Circuit Studio (.CSPcbDoc) boards work the same way.

  3. Save the project

    Save the resulting KiCad project.

  4. Import each schematic sheet

    Start the Schematic Editor standalone, choose File → Import → Non-KiCad Schematic and select a .SchDoc sheet.

  5. Copy the sheets into the project

    Copy each imported schematic sheet into the project you saved in step 3.

Watch out for

  • KiCad doesn't support schematics with multiple top-level sheets, so import each sheet and place them as hierarchical sheets in the project.

Sources: docs.kicad.org/9.0/en/kicad/kicad.html. Menus and options can change between versions; if a step doesn't match what you see, follow the linked page.