Kobee Studio: your first label

This walkthrough makes a simple POWER marking on front silkscreen. Start with the 1.5 candidate installed and a saved KiCad 10 board. A copy of a board is a useful place to learn.

1. Open the artwork editor

In PCB Editor, choose Tools → External Plugins → Kobee Studio: Create PCB Artwork. If you want a new label, clear the selection first. Selecting existing Kobee artwork instead can open it for editing.

Choose Labels → Standard. The workspace has content and style controls on the left and a live vector preview on the right.

2. Enter the content

Under Basics, choose Make → Label. Replace the label text with POWER.

The Quick label picker is an alternative to typing. It supplies common board terms; it does not prevent you from changing the text afterwards.

3. Choose a container and readable size

1. Open Container and try a rounded shape.
2. Choose an appearance. A filled/inverted label makes the letters into openings in the filled region; an outline encloses the text with a border.
3. Open Typography and set the main text height. 1.2 mm is a useful starting example, rather than a guarantee for every font or fabricator.
4. Return to Container and adjust padding until the lettering has room on all sides.
5. Watch the preview for thin strokes, closed counters and a border that is too close to the text.

Change one setting at a time while learning. A physical text height is different from the total container height: padding and the shape add to the final artwork size.

4. Select the output layer

Size, anchor and output

Text height

This example uses 1.20 mm lettering; choose a size your manufacturing process can reproduce.

Placement anchor

Choose the point that remains attached to the placement origin as the label grows.

Preview origin

The cross shows the placement reference for the selected anchor.

In Place artwork on, leave Front silk selected and turn off any other target layers. The checkboxes control what is generated. Preview layer chooses which selected layer you are inspecting; changing the preview alone does not change the target set.

Keep copper and mask off for this example. Those layers affect the manufactured board, so they need deliberate clearance and stack-up checks.

5. Place the label

1. Choose Place artwork, or use Ctrl + Enter / Shift + Enter.
2. Back in KiCad, position the artwork with the move cursor and click to place it.
3. Use KiCad's move or rotate commands to align the new artwork footprint.
4. Inspect it at its actual board size, then save the PCB.

Kobee Studio generates a separate artwork footprint. Your electrical footprints remain separate. The label is editable KiCad geometry; its apparent size in the zoomed preview is not a physical scale ruler.

6. Reopen and change it

Select one Kobee Studio artwork footprint, then open the plugin again. The saved settings should load. Change POWER to POWER IN, choose the update action and check the result on the board.

Reopening a saved item is the most useful final check: it confirms you can revise the work later. If the editor opens a fresh default label, check that you selected the artwork footprint, rather than an individual polygon or the electrical component underneath it.

Before you use the label in production

Check the fabrication workflow: text height, minimum stroke and gap, component clearance, solder-mask clipping and generated Gerbers. A large, readable preview can still become too small on a real board.

Next, try a label with a symbol, then save your preferred settings as a profile.