cutlistlab › Manual › Sizes and units
Chapter 3
Sizes and units
Millimetre, centimetre, inch or foot: how to switch, how to type fractions, and how to enter in one unit and read out in another.
Switching the unit
Next to the Parts heading sits a button with the unit that applies now. Click it to cycle through the four options: millimetre, centimetre, inch, foot. The button always shows where you are.
The same choice also sits in Settings under Unit. It is exactly the same setting; it makes no difference where you change it.
Fractions and mixed numbers
With the unit on inches or feet, you can type the size exactly as it appears on your drawing. There is nothing to convert.
| What you type | What it means |
|---|---|
23 5/8 | twenty-three and five-eighths inches |
23-5/8 | the same; a hyphen works too |
11/16 | eleven-sixteenths of an inch, not one and one-sixteenth |
23.625 | the same as 23 5/8; decimals work too |
4' | four feet |
4' 8" | four feet eight inches |
Everything is rounded to whole millimetres, because that is what the tool works with. That is finer than anything you hit with a circular saw, so in practice you never notice.
Enter in inches, read out metric
Working from an American plan but cutting in metric? You do not have to convert anything in your head. Because the unit is only a display, you can enter in one unit and read out in another.
- Click the unit button until it reads inch.
- Type all the sizes exactly as they appear on the drawing, fractions and all.
- Click the same button on until it reads mm. All sizes are now metric, everywhere: in the cutting plan, on the cut list, on the labels and in the PDF.
Cutting size and finished size
As long as you enter no edge banding, the size you type and the size you cut are the same. As soon as you choose apply yourself on a side, the cutting size becomes smaller than the finished size, because the banding brings the piece up to size.
On the labels you can choose which of the two is printed: Cut size or Final size. At the saw bench you want the cutting size; when fitting your cabinet, the finished size. See Labels.