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Altium "Align to Grid" command not moving all components

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ben5243

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In Altium v18.1.9 PCB layout, I frequency drag components around and they end up snapping to some pad or trace and I end up with all my components at oddball coordinates like X: 900.537mil / Y: 692.94mil

This isn't really a problem, but I feel like it looks pretty amateur when I send a pick and place file to my board house with all my components at weird places.
As far as MCAD, I make sure all my connectors, board outline and mounting hole types are on a 0.1mm snap grid because the company uses mm for mechanical design. But component placement I prefer in mil.

1.) Is there a way to prevent component origins from leaving the snap grid? Like when I have a 0.1mm snap grid on, I can move connectors. Then when I have 1mil snap grid on, I can move components and it won't allow the origin to snap to something off-grid?

2.) Once that inevitably doesn't work - why doesn't "Edit->Align->Align components to grid" work on all components?
It moves about half and I think it worked, then I fix everything affected, then find out half the components are still at oddball x.xxx mil coordinates.
They are not locked - if I select those coordinates individually or in small groups and perform the same command, they move just fine. So is this a bug or am I not using the command correctly?

Note- I've also tried the command "move all component origin to grid" but it does nothing. Per Altium documention, components with pads that are already off-grid will not be moved. What's the point of that then???

Thanks

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For example (relating to #1 above) - if I have 3 or more components in a line and I select them and perform "Align vertically" then "Distribute horizontally" so they're all perfectly arrayed, even if the end components are on the snap grid, the middle ones will end up at fractions of the snap grid like .333 or .5.
Isn't this preventable with some design rule that when enabled keeps them on grid?

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Okay I might have solved #2

Turns out I was not waiting long enough for the "Align to grid" command to execute. If you pan/drag or zoom or click on anything before it's completely finished, Altium bails without warning.

There is no pop-up progress bar, and the cursor only changes to the "thinking circle" until you move the mouse which is instantly if you've used the mouse to select the menu item.
The only way to see its progress is by watching the start menu in windows and the green line progress until it's done.

Guess I'll find the time to upgrade to v19 and see if it's improved.

Still curious about #1 if anyone has tips
 

but I feel like it looks pretty amateur when I send a pick and place file to my board house with all my components at weird places.

I may be wrong, but the use of footprints slightly larger than the expected numeric error may be sufficient to deal with this scale conversion. Most automatic pick and place machines, even the simplest ones, have reasonable X,Y resolutions.
 

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