Reference designator position in Altium Designer

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   Hello, 

I would like to check is there an option to customize the location of reference designator in Altium Designer. 

In the older versions of FP Expert (older than 25.xx, possibly 25.02 as reference designator location was mentioned in the changelog) the location of the designator was in the center of the component bust justified to the left, with the dot of the ".Designator" string being positioned in the upper right quadrant of the footprint. 

In the newest version it is still positioned in the center but the text is justified to the center vertically and horizontally. I also noticed that the position can be reverted to the old pattern by using the undo action after the import script is finished running. This is not possible when a footprint is generated in one of the old versions of FP Expert - the undo button is greyed out. 

Can this be customized or is this the default positioning of the reference designator going forward?

Or is this some kind of software bug?

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felecro Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List New User Joined: 08 Nov 2022 Status: Offline Points: 14	Post Options Post Reply Quote felecro Report Post Thanks(1) Quote Reply Topic: Reference designator position in Altium Designer Posted: 28 Jan 2025 at 5:20am
	Hello, I would like to check is there an option to customize the location of reference designator in Altium Designer. In the older versions of FP Expert (older than 25.xx, possibly 25.02 as reference designator location was mentioned in the changelog) the location of the designator was in the center of the component bust justified to the left, with the dot of the ".Designator" string being positioned in the upper right quadrant of the footprint. In the newest version it is still positioned in the center but the text is justified to the center vertically and horizontally. I also noticed that the position can be reverted to the old pattern by using the undo action after the import script is finished running. This is not possible when a footprint is generated in one of the old versions of FP Expert - the undo button is greyed out. Can this be customized or is this the default positioning of the reference designator going forward? Or is this some kind of software bug?



Tom H Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: 05 Jan 2012 Location: San Diego, CA Status: Offline Points: 5743	Post Options Post Reply Quote Tom H Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28 Jan 2025 at 8:42am
	By popular demand from many Altium users we changed the .Designator justification to Center/Center. Altium scripting makes altering text justification very difficult and until that changes we have no plans for providing a user preference.
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felecro Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List New User Joined: 08 Nov 2022 Status: Offline Points: 14	Post Options Post Reply Quote felecro Report Post Thanks(1) Quote Reply Posted: 28 Jan 2025 at 11:20pm
	OK, thanks for answering my question