After you have placed the components, you can route the board to form the electrical connections between the components. This chapter explains how to route the board manually, and describes the manual routing tools. You can route the entire board manually using the routing tools described in this chapter. Or, if you have purchased Layout or Layout Plus, you can use the autorouter and interactive routing tools to route the board, then use the manual routing tools described in this chapter to optimize routing.

You probably performed the following tasks when you set up the board and placed components. If not, you need to do so to prepare the board for routing.

· Designate appropriate layers as plane layers or routing layers

· Define vias

· Set or verify net properties

· Run Placement Spacing Violations and correct any spacing violations