What the application actually does
You enter the parts you need and the sheets or lengths you have. It works out how to fit one onto the other with as little left over as possible, then prints the answer. This page is the long version of that sentence.
The parts list
A part is a rectangle with a label, a width, a height and a quantity. That is the whole data model, and it is deliberately small.
Eighteen identical carcass sides go in as one row with a quantity of 18, not eighteen rows. A job with 108 parts is usually four or five rows of typing, which is the difference between a thing you do and a thing you mean to do.
If a part must keep its grain running one way, that is a fifth column with three settings: along the part, across it, or free to turn. Most jobs are a mix, so it is set per part rather than per job.
Lists can be saved as templates. The kitchen firm in the first example now opens last month's kitchen, changes four quantities and two widths, and has a new layout in five minutes.
The stock list
Stock is what you are cutting from. Usually that is full sheets at a standard size, and you say how many you have or leave it as unlimited and let the layout tell you how many you need.
Stock can also be part sheets and offcuts you already own, each with its own size and a note saying where it is. Those get used before any new sheet is opened, which is the entire point of keeping them. There is more on that in reusing offcuts.
Stock can be a length rather than a sheet. Set a stock length with no width and the same solver handles the one dimensional problem, which is skirting, architrave, decking, batten, worktop and the flooring job.
The layout
Press the button and it fills sheets. On an ordinary job this takes under a second, and on the largest job on this site, 216 parts across four sheets, it is still under a second.
Every layout it produces can be cut with straight cuts that run all the way across whatever piece you are holding. That constraint is not negotiable, because a layout that needs a cut to stop halfway cannot be cut on a panel saw, a table saw or a track saw. It occasionally costs a little material and it is worth it. There is more on this in cutting order on a panel saw.
The three settings that change the answer
These are the numbers people get wrong, and getting them wrong does not produce a slightly worse layout. It produces one that does not fit.
Labels and printing
Every part on the diagram carries the label you typed and its finished size. That label is what you write on the part in pencil as it comes off the saw, and it is the reason 41 acrylic letters from two different signs can come off one sheet without being sorted by guesswork.
The default print is one sheet per page, portrait, with a cutting list summary on the last page. It is designed to be taped to a wall and written on, which is why it prints in line work rather than solid colour. Colour fills are an option if you want them.
It saves as a PDF if you would rather send the diagram to somebody else, and the parts list exports as a CSV if you need it in a quote or an order.
Units and sizes
Millimetres, centimetres, metres, inches, or feet and inches. Set it once. Fractional inches are entered and displayed as fractions, because a joinery shop working in imperial does not want to see 23.8125.
There is no built in list of standard sheet sizes you have to choose from. You type the size of the sheet you buy, whether that is 2440 by 1220, 3050 by 1220, 2500 by 1250, 3050 by 2030 or something a merchant made up. Sizes you use are remembered.
Offcuts
After a layout runs, any leftover area larger than the minimum you set can be added to your stock list with a location note. Next time you run a job in that material, those pieces are used first.
This is in the pro and team licences rather than the single workshop licence. It arrived in version 3.0 in April 2019, and the reasoning behind it is in reusing offcuts.
What it does not do
Worth saying plainly, because the wrong tool bought is worse than no tool.
- It does not nest shapes. Everything is a rectangle. A curved boat panel or an acrylic letter goes in as the rectangle it is cut from, and the material inside that rectangle but outside the part is waste we cannot see. If your work is mostly open letterforms, a true shape nester will beat this and you should buy one.
- It does not drive a machine. No post processors, no G code, no saw controller files. It prints a diagram for a person to read.
- It does not design anything. You arrive with a cutting list. Working out that a 600 wide base unit needs 564 wide parts is your job.
- It does not manage your business. No invoicing, no scheduling, no customers, no stock valuation.
- It does not need the internet. Which is a limitation in the sense that there is no cloud sync, and a feature in the sense that it works in a unit with no signal.
On the grain question, one honest note. We ran the oak sideboard with the grain locks on and off, and it came back as 3 sheets either way. Grain locking is often free. The thing it buys you is not board, it is not remaking a door.
It is a desktop application
Windows 10 and later, macOS 12 and later. It installs, it runs, it does not phone anywhere. Your cutting lists are files on your own machine.
It is sold by licence key
You buy a key, you enter it once, and the version you bought keeps working. See pricing and the FAQ on moving a licence to a new machine.
It has been going since 2013
Twelve releases, the most recent in February 2026. The changelog lists all of them, including the ones where very little happened.
Read on
The walkthrough, the jobs it has been used on, and what it costs.