What the tool optimises for

The four goals

The selected goal is also shown below the buttons above the input. Use Settings in that bar to open the goal choice directly, without scrolling past all parts. See Settings.

The Settings card contains Optimize for. There are four choices, and they really do produce different plans.

Least waste

As little wasted sheet material as possible. This is the default, and usually what you want: buy as little sheet as possible.

Fewest cuts

As few saw cuts as possible: faster, simpler cutting. Choose this when you saw by hand, or when a store charges per cut. You waste slightly more sheet but finish sooner.

Lowest cost

Lowest cost: the sheet prices, plus the cutting cost when you enter a price per cut (cutting service). Only makes sense when you filled in a price on your sheets, or picked sheets from the library. With two sheet sizes at different prices, one slightly bigger sheet can work out cheaper than two small ones. If a cutting service charges per cut, fill in Price per cut (the field appears next to the choice): the tool then adds sheets and cuts and shows Cutting cost and Total separately below the diagram. That way it picks, say, one large sheet with few cuts over many small sheets that each need cutting.

Strips by width

Equal narrow parts (up to 2×4 wide) lie together by width as strips in one block: you change the saw to another width less often, rip the strips and then cut them to length. Sort the cut list by width to cut them one after another. Usually takes a little more sheet; Search thoroughly is not available here. Handy with a table saw and a mitre saw: you set the fence per width, rip all strips of that width and then cut them to length. When you switch to this goal, the message shows how many fewer width settings you need, and how many sheets it costs. Around locked pieces the tool does not group strips; ⌖ Search thoroughly is not available with this goal, because it would split the strips up again. Within a width, every length gets its own intermediate piece: you cut that free first, then rip the strips and cut each strip to length in one go. If a few strips of several lengths are left over, they share one intermediate piece: you rip it strip by strip at the same width, and the change to a shorter length falls on a strip cut by itself. So you do not need another width setting there.

When you switch goals, the tool shows below what changed compared with the previous result. So you see straight away whether it was worth it.

If your goal costs one sheet more than needed, the tool says so above the plan. With Fewest cuts a layout with fewer cuts can easily need an extra sheet; you then see, for example, With "Least waste" this fits on 1 sheet fewer, with 15 instead of 12 cuts. Choose least waste switches over. With Lowest cost the message only appears when fewer sheets is not more expensive. Leave it, and your plan stays as it is.

Thorough search

The plan you see straight away is already good: the tool tries several starting strategies and improves them within a fraction of a second. But "good" is not always "the best". With ⌖ Search thoroughly you let it search much longer.

If the plan might fit on fewer sheets judging by the area, the tool already keeps searching for that by itself, in the background. You can simply keep working. If it finds a layout with fewer sheets, it does not switch to it by itself: above the sheets a message appears with the number of sheets now and after, and the button Use this layout. Only when you press it does the layout change, and you can still undo that in the message that then appears. This way the parts never move around the sheets unasked while you are, say, working through the cut list.

Search extra layouts to verify this is the best one. While it searches you see how many layouts have been tried, and whether anything has been saved yet. Stop breaks it off; you keep whatever is on screen.

At the end you get an honest answer. Sometimes that is "no better layout found, this is optimal": then you know it cannot get leaner, because the tool compares against the theoretical lower bound. Sometimes it saves a whole sheet.

⌖ Search thoroughly is in the View menu above the plan on desktop and mobile.