How do I check a pick-and-place file before PCB assembly?

Last checked 2026-11-11 against the live tool page.

Short answer

The placement checker reviews your pick-and-place (centroid or CPL) file before you send it to assembly. It checks coordinates, units, board sides and rotation. You can also compare it against your BOM.

Accepted inputs

Excel, CSV, TSV or TXT.
Altium and JLC pick-and-place files, and KiCad .pos files.
Up to 5 MB or 10,000 rows.
Delimiters: auto-detect, comma, semicolon, tab or pipe. You can also paste cells from Excel.

Steps

Import the placement file. Each row needs a reference, X, Y, rotation (degrees) and side.
Optional: import the BOM to compare the two files.
Review each file check and follow it to the record it came from.
Download the normalized files and the check report.

What it does not check

It does not verify footprint geometry, pin 1 or polarity.
A clean result means the file passed format and consistency checks. It does not mean the board will assemble correctly.
Files stay in your browser. Source files are never changed. Nothing is sent until you submit an engineering inquiry.

BOM checker and Circuit Lab.