Introduction

When adding components to a PCB design, you might find that the expected silkscreen shapes do not appear in the design.

Description

Any technology file that you use to create your PCB designs must have a layer of type "Silk Screen", otherwise any components added from the standard libraries will not be able to find the appropriate layer on which their silk screen shapes can be placed.

Remember, when adding components to a design, no new layers will be created automatically; items will only be added if the right layers already exist in the design.  Layers are not matched by name, but by the layer type and the side on which it is defined (except for rare inner layers where the layer name is needed to eliminate ambiguity).

See also 'Why are layer types important'.