What version of Kicad are you using?
In V6 the latest, when you open the main launcher screen down the left
hand side there are several options. Two of which are: create a zip
archive of projects and unzip and archive...
That may help retain the old projects.
Generally I simply copy the entire project directory somewhere else...
In Kicad 6 you can have both global and project specific libs. That can
be useful sometimes.
The problem you are having is that your installs cannot find the libs.
So from preferences, open configure paths
That will tell you where Kicad is looking for the libs.
Adjust to point to your network store.
In preferences there are two other options that you may need / want to
tweak.
manage symbol libraries
manage footprint libraries
These enable/disable various libs. This reduces the clutter on the screen
when working with the libs. eg you may not want the various audio amp
libs or the dsp libs.
Likewise the footprints can be reduced as you need.
Generally I point kicad ay my own libs, and usually the devices lib, and
that's it I only add other libs as needed.
The last things to note is that you may have to do a bit of hunting about
in the old project if you have created any new footprints or symbols
there.
Kicad needs to be told WHERE to save things, especially in the older
versions. You needed to set the working lib first Then save.
The best method is to create a couple of directories my-footprints ,
my-symbols and make sure that you save anything that you create in there.
So in your old project, edit the footprint/symbol you have created and
resave it in your own libs.
You may have to add these to the new project and point it at the specific
part. That should resolve most of the problems.
Andy
On Sat, 24 Sep 2022 09:50:02 -0700
"George Csahanin" <george@...> wrote:
Not sure where to start. I've migrated to KiCAD and very much like it but from day one several years ago I just cannot understand the libraries, etc. I'm not even sure of how to explain it.
I have a project "test" which has test.sch, test.kicad_pcb in it. It is fine and I've had boards made that work great. But I want to make some improvemets to the circuitry and make new boards but I don't want to lose the old version. I tried making a new project "testa" and in its new directory I placed copies of the working files but renamed as testa.kicad_pcb and testa.sch. The board layout seems ok but the schematic gave me message about remapping the components I chose not to and the schematic came up with all of the wires present and "??" for all the components. Tried it again and same questyion so I chose remap and got ssaem result and a huge list of errors.
A sample of the errors but there is one for every component in the schematic:
Warning: No symbol ¡°R¡± found in symbol library table.
Warning: No symbol ¡°R¡± found in symbol library table.
Warning: No symbol ¡°LM7805CT¡± found in symbol library table.
Warning: No symbol ¡°MC78L08ACP¡± found in symbol library table.
Info: Symbol library table mapping complete!
So I guess I'm asking how do I keep earlier revisions of a project. I'm pretty sure that if I just continued to modify the original project "test" it will carry forward to the board, etc but I'd lose the current version.
And where do libraries reside and how can I add stuff? I have heard nothing but frustration adding stuff in the past which is what has me locked into just modifying the existing project
And/or how can I duplicate an existing project and somehow preserve the custom components I made? I started this project in 2017 and not sure how I made the original components. I also work on KiCAD on three different PC's in my house. The files live on a central server. I use windows as well as Linux versions.
But the library thing...just a constant frustrating point for me...
Thanks y'all for any help.
GeorgeC
