Newbie: Text on Bottom Silk

[NivagSwerdna]

I have really confused myself.... when laying out a PCB you are essentially looking from the top down... so when you switch to the bottom layer you are seeing all the tracks etc reversed?

When adding text to the bottom silk screen it appears to be the correct way around but when you fabricate it has to be reversed?

I got a warning when exporting but having just got my PCB back it appears correct.... apart from.... one designator!

Please can you explain how it is meant to work

(When you look at the Gerber's are they meant to be forwards... Looking up at the bottom of the board?)

Thanks

[NivagSwerdna]

So... my PCB arrived...

The top image is 3D Preview in DipTrace... the bottom image is what arrived...

Maybe the manufacturer tried to fix it silently for me and got one thing wrong?

(Looks like the Rules Check didn't have Silk over Pad Checked by default either... I wonder if that check default changed in 3.3?).

[NivagSwerdna]

And here's the .GBO viewed at http://www.gerber-viewer.com/

Looks like this is a view from the top down through the board?  So the text should really be reversed in this view?

[OwO]

Yes.  You can see from the pictures that C3 was turned but C1 was not, so this was likely fixed manually. Gerbers are ALWAYS viewed from the top, so if it looks like that it's flipped.

[NivagSwerdna]

Yes.  You can see from the pictures that C3 was turned but C1 was not, so this was likely fixed manually.

Wow.  They never even asked and it looks like I had some silkscreen overlaps too which they have tidied up.  So... to get the right Gerbers out of DipTrace...  Should... the checkbox be set or clear on export... and should... View... Flip Text Automatically... be set or clear? [It seems the defaults might be unsafe?]

[HwAoRrDk]

I have View > Flip Text Automatically set, and this appears to cause the Flip Text box in the Gerber export to actually be disabled and ticked automatically for all bottom layers.

Never had any problems with silk screen text coming out wrong on boards. I don't recall ever changing that View menu setting, so I think it's the default.

If you want to actually read the text on your bottom side, you can always do View > Mirror which will give you the true view of looking at the bottom of a board.