Chapter 6

Settings

Saw kerf, minimum offcut, which properties count and which columns you see. Plus the window with language, country and unit.

Two places both called Settings

Click Settings in the bar above the input. The card opens and its heading with Optimize for comes into view. Clicking again does not close it. The text below the three buttons shows the same summary as the card heading, including after changes. Jumping does not change your project or calculate a new plan. In Linear the bar disappears and the card moves to the stock lengths.

The Settings card sits below your sheets (below stock lengths for linear cutting) and starts collapsed. Open it to change Optimize for, kerf, minimum offcut, trim or oversize. Its heading shows the goal and changed values. The window of the same name in the project menu contains country, unit and CNC.

The Settings block

At the top sits Counts in. Those four toggles decide whether a property counts in the calculation. Switch one off and the matching column disappears too, but what you set per part is kept.

Material: On: each part only goes on sheets of its own material. Off: material is ignored and anything fits any sheet.
Thickness: On: parts with a thickness only go on sheets of that thickness. Off: thickness is ignored.
Grain: On: parts with a fixed grain direction may not rotate. Off: grain is ignored and everything may rotate.
Edge banding: On: the cut size is corrected per side for edge banding. Off: banding is not applied (cut size = finished size); per-part settings are kept.

Note Only switch Material or Thickness off when you really want everything to go on everything. It is a quick way to check your list (if the problem disappears, that was it), but a plan that puts 18 mm on a 12 mm sheet cannot be cut.

Below that sits Show columns. Only shows or hides this column; the setting itself still applies. So these toggles change nothing about the result.

To edit manually, select a piece in the plan. See Manual editing.

Saw kerf and minimum offcut

Kerf (saw blade width): The width the saw removes; applies to all sheets. An ordinary circular saw blade takes about 3 mm, a track saw with its standard blade 2.2 mm, and a table saw with a full-kerf blade 3.2 mm. Set it too low and your last pieces come out just too short. On the Linear tab you set it separately: there you usually crosscut on a mitre saw, which often has a bigger blade (a common 216 mm blade cuts 2.8 mm wide against 2.2 mm for a track saw). Over ten cuts that is six millimetres.
Minimum offcut: A leftover piece counts as a usable offcut if its short side is at least this; smaller is waste. Anything below that is called waste and is not kept. Set it higher when your shed is already full, lower when you want to keep small pieces too. For a bar it is not about the short side but about the leftover length; as a rule of thumb many builders use 300 to 500 mm there.
Trim (edge trimming): Edge trimmed off each side of a full sheet to remove the factory or rough edge. Reduces the usable size; does not apply to offcuts. The saw kerf comes on top. 0 = off. The trim is what comes off the sheet, the kerf comes on top; the cutting sequence then starts with that edge and measures everything after it from the trimmed side. Useful with a rough sheet or a damaged edge. Leave it at zero when your sheets are cut cleanly to size. For a bar it is called Trim (square off the ends) and comes off both ends, against a skewed end or an end check; rule of thumb 20 to 50 mm per end, more when you see a check. A bar that comes from your offcut stock is not trimmed again.
Oversize (per side): For rough-cutting first and cutting to size afterwards, for example on the table saw. Every part comes out of the sheet this much larger on each side. Leave at 0 if the store cuts for you. An example: kerf 2.5 mm, trim 10 mm and oversize 5 mm. Between two parts there is then 2.5 + 2 × 5 = 12.5 mm, and at the sheet edge 10 mm plus the kerf comes off first, after which the part starts with its 5 mm oversize. In the cutting diagram and the cutting sequence the parts are at their rough size, because that is what you cut from the sheet: in the diagram the light area is the rough size and the inner rectangle with the thin line is the final size. The drawing, the label and the cut list show the size you cut the part to afterwards; the cut list puts the rough size below it in small type. In CNC mode the oversize does not count, and linear cutting does not have it.

Tip Not sure about your kerf? Cut a test piece of known width in half, measure both halves and subtract that from the original size. What is left is your kerf.

The Settings window

Language: Choose the language of the tool. See Languages, countries and currency.
Country: Sets which sheet library, unit and currency the tool uses. Country sets the stores, prices and currency. Independent of the interface language.
Unit: Unit for measurements in the tool. Internally everything is calculated in millimeters. See Sizes and units.
CNC mode (tighter, not straight-cuttable): Packs the parts as tightly as possible, including internal cut-outs. This layout CANNOT be cut with a circular saw or rail, only with a CNC router. Export via Export ▸ CNC export (DXF). Leave this off if you work with a saw.

Note CNC mode produces a layout you cannot cut with a circular saw or rail: the pieces sit tightly packed, with cut-outs in the middle of the sheet. Only a router can do that. When it is on, the tool says so above the plan.