editing pads in Eagle

It seems that whereever I have a trace going between 2 solder pads on an IC, I get an aperature error in that area. Is it possible to edit those pads to make them smaller so there’s more room for the trace?

Or better yet, If there’s no connection to the solder pad on that side of the board, is it nessasary for the pad to even be there (on the component side)

I’ve got my board checked out ok, by routing the traces by hand, but I’m trying to make the board smaller to get the cost down, and I can’t get these traces routed without going between pads on the smaller version of my board.

Thank you!

in schematic or board view, click on library/open and pick the library you want to edit. in the library editor, figure out the name of the package used and then edit that. use change/diameter to change TH pad size. use change/smd to change an smd pad size. it might help to turn off all but the top layer (sometimes it hard to hit the pad with the mouse).

however, you should make a copy of the part and edit that. the best way to do this is create a new library and then go to the control panel. expand the library section and then expand the library that has the part you want. Then right click the part and “copy to library”. The part will magically appear in your open library. then edit it to your heart’s content.

don’t forget to do a library/use on the new lib.

Phil