Tom, From the design side, I couldn't agree with you more - let's pitch the darn silkscreen. When we're doing automated assembly and trying to pack 0603's as densely as possible, the legend often is larger than the component itself. With CAD tools these days, interconnect can take less time than preparing a decent silkscreen. But the tool vendors are only able to sell based on routing speed, and you can guess where the R&D goes. UNFORTUNATELY, having carried this campaign in a few directions, the universal stumbling blocks are inspection and test. As tools like Unicam, Fabmaster (others?) proliferate, the ICT community will universally search and inspect from a database; the inspection problem probably won't go away until AOI of finished product becomes practical, at least on a sampling basis. Also the folks in the lab trying to debug the 1st piece would need genuine CAD-like tools for reference. This won't happen until low- cost review tools are widely available (CAD vendors out there?). When I do sleep, I dream of databases as master drawings.... and trees standing undisturbed. Regards, Jeff Seeger Applied CAD Knowledge Inc Chief Technical Officer Tyngsboro, MA 01879 [log in to unmask] 508 649 9800