Working with an Off Sheet Connector Object on a Schematic Sheet in Altium NEXUS

Created: December 15, 2020 | Updated: September 16, 2021

Contents

Summary
Availability
Placement
Graphical Editing
Non-Graphical Editing

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 in the following ways:

Choose Place » Off Sheet Connector from the main menus.
Right-click in the design space then choose Place » Off Sheet Connector from the context menu.

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 mode of the Properties panel with the Net Name selected and ready for editing; enter the new net name.
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 then click or press Enter to effect placement.
Continue placing further off sheet connectors or right-click or press Esc to exit placement mode.

Additional actions that can be performed during placement while the off sheet connector is still floating on the cursor are:

Press the Tab key to pause the placement and access the Off Sheet Connector mode of the Properties panel in which its properties can be changed on-the-fly. Click the workspace pause button overlay () to resume placement.
Press the X or Y keys to flip the off sheet connector along the X-axis or Y-axis.
Press the Spacebar to rotate the off sheet connector counterclockwise or Shift+Spacebar for clockwise rotation. Rotation is in increments of 90°.

While attributes can be modified during placement (Tab to access the Properties panel), keep in mind that these will become the default settings for further placement unless the Permanent option on the Schematic – Defaults page of the Preferences dialog is enabled. When this option is enabled, changes made will affect only the object being placed and subsequent objects placed during the same placement session.

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.

Note that the Cross Reference feature identifies the locations of interconnected Ports and positional grid references for interconnected off sheet connectors. For both types of schematic connection objects, the existing Reports » Port Cross Reference » Add To Project command adds a cross-reference parameter based on the target sheet name and a positional grid reference.

The Properties panel mode of the Offsheet Connector object will display the cross reference values that are applied if the Schematic.UseAutomaticCrossReferences option is enabled in the Advanced Settings dialog.

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, 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.

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

The Off Sheet Connector can be edited in-place.

Once editing is complete, press Enter or click away from the string to exit in-place editing mode.

This feature is available only if the Enable In-Place Editing option is enabled on the Schematic – General page of the Preferences dialog.

Off sheet connectors do not have independent font properties; they use the Document Font properties (also referred to as the System Font) of the schematic sheet on which they are placed. Double-click in the sheet border to edit the Document Options in the Properties panel including the font.

If attempting to graphically modify an object that has its Locked property enabled, a dialog will appear asking for confirmation to proceed with the edit. If the Protect Locked Objects option is enabled on the Schematic – Graphical Editing page of the Preferences dialog, and the Locked option for that design object is enabled as well, then that object cannot be selected or graphically edited. Click the locked object to select it then disable the Locked property in the List panel or disable the Protect Locked Objects option to graphically edit the object.

Non-Graphical Editing

The following methods of non-graphical editing are available.

Editing via the Off Sheet Connector Dialog or Properties Panel

Properties page: Off Sheet Connector Properties

This method of editing uses the associated Off Sheet Connector dialog and the Properties panel mode to modify the properties of an off sheet connector object.

The Off Sheet Connector dialog, on the left, and the Off Sheet Connector mode of the Properties panel on the right

After placement, the Off Sheet Connector dialog can be accessed by:

Double-clicking on the placed Off Sheet Connector object.
Placing the cursor over the Off Sheet Connector object, right-clicking, then choosing Properties from the context menu.

During placement, the Off Sheet Connector mode of the Properties panel can be accessed by pressing the Tab key. Once the Off Sheet Connector is placed, all options appear.

After placement, the Off Sheet Connector mode of the Properties panel can be accessed in one of the following ways:

If the Properties panel is already active, by selecting the Off Sheet Connector object.
After selecting the Off Sheet Connector object, select the Properties panel from the Panels button in the bottom right section of the workspace, or select View » Panels » Properties.

If the Double Click Runs Interactive Properties option is disabled (default) on the Schematic - Graphical Editing page of the Preferences dialog, when the primitive is double-clicked or you right-click on a selected primitive then choose Properties, the dialog will open. When the Double Click Runs Interactive Properties option is enabled, the Properties panel will open.

While the options are the same in the dialog and the panel, the order and placement of the options may differ slightly.

The Off Sheet Connector properties can be accessed prior to entering placement mode from the Schematic – Defaults page of the Preferences dialog. This allows the default properties for the Off Sheet Connector object to be changed, which will be applied when placing subsequent Off Sheet Connector.

Editing Multiple Objects

The Properties panel supports multiple object editing, where the property settings that are identical in all currently selected objects may be modified. When multiples of the same object type are selected manually, via the Find Similar Objects dialog or through a SCH Filter or SCH List panel, a Properties panel field entry that is not shown as an asterisk (*) may be edited for all selected objects.

Editing via a List Panel

Panel pages: SCH List, SCH Filter

A List panel allows you to display design objects from one or more documents in tabular format, enabling quick inspection and modification of object attributes. Used in conjunction with appropriate filtering - by using the SCH Filter panel, or the Find Similar Objects dialog - it enables the display of just those objects falling under the scope of the active filter – allowing you to target and edit multiple design objects with greater accuracy and efficiency.