Gerber Format

The Gerber file format is the de facto standard for printed circuit board (PCB) design data transfer, called the backbone of the electronics fabrication industry. All PCB design systems output Gerber files and all PCB fabrication software can handle them, enabling PCB professionals to exchange PCB design data securely and efficiently.

Gerber layer files represent copper layers, solder mask, legend, and drill and route data. Attributes provide meta-information about these images, such as whether a graphics object is an SMD pad, a via pad or a fiducial, or net names of connections. The Gerber job file transfers PCB fabrication characteristics, such as thickness or finish, in a standardized and machine readable manner. The Gerber format is simple, compact and unequivocal. Thanks to its use of printable 7-bit ASCII characters, it is portable, human-readable and easy to debug. Implementations are thoroughly field-tested and debugged.

Resources

  • An easy to use online Reference Gerber Viewer
  • An offline Gerber Job Editor
  • More resources are available on the Gerber Downloads page:
    • The Gerber Format Specification
    • A tutorial: the chapter “Overview of the Gerber Format” in the specification
    • Examples of PCB fabrication data sets
    • Test files, to help debug implementations
  • Visual Studio Extension provides language support for Gerber X3/X2 format (repository)
  • Gerber-writer: a Python library for writing Gerber files

 

"Gerber is the only data format, as far as I know, that has *dropped* enough historical burdens to remain lively, based on current practice deliberately surveyed. The result is, of course, a specification easy to read and to implement correctly." - Frog Chen

 

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