Production Documentation

Just as important as the shop drawings, is the production documentation for your project. CabWriter can produce the following documentation from your model:

  • Cut list – Spreadsheet compatible .csv and/or Cutlist Plus fx compatible file(s)
  • Door and Drawer Schedule – Spreadsheet containing door/drawer front (Pro only), and/or drawer box sizes.
  • Rough Lumber Report – Shows all rough lumber parts in the project sorted by rip and crosscut along with total board ft/species. (Pro Only)
  • Box Schedule (New)– Lists the sizes of every cabinet box, its type, and how many drawers it contains to help with project costing. (Pro Only)
  • Labels – Print part labels.
  • DXF Files – DXF file(s) containing all parts for each material type and thickness (CabWriter CNC Only).  Click here for more details.

New in CabWriter 5: Hidden cabinets or parts on a scene are not exported to any of the reports. This is handy for creating documentation or DXF files for a subset of cabinets.

Cut Lists

CabWriter has built in an additional set of tools called Cutlist Bridge that allow you to export all of the cabinet parts as a cut list including all of the common information such as:

  • Part (component) number
  • Sub-assembly
  • Description
  • Quantities (copies)
  • Thickness, width, and length
  • Material name
  • Notes
  • Finished thickness, width, and length (see below for explanation)

There are two options for exporting a cutlist, either as a Comma Separated Value (.csv) file, or as a Cutlist Plus fx Gold or Platinum compatible file. CSV files conform to a universal standard and are compatible with Excel or any other spreadsheet as well as a wide variety of other programs. Tab or semi-colon delimited file export is also available.

Cutlist Bridge

Cutlist Bridge is the core technology that enables CabWriter to create cut lists from a SketchUp model and can be purchased as a standalone extension to work with any non-SketchUp model. Cutlist Bridge functionality is fully integrated into CabWriter and allows for attributes (i.e. material type and name, part type, oversizing, etc.) to be stored with each part in the model; which we call the Extended Entity Info. When CabWriter draws a cabinet, it automatically attaches these attributes to the parts based on parameters that the user sets for the project. For example, if the cabinet carcass is setup to use pre-finished maple plywood, CabWriter automatically assigns that material to each of the cabinet carcass parts as well as any oversizing that the user might have set in the parameters. The user is free to change any of these attributes on a part by part basis using the Extended Entity Info window. When it’s time to generate a cutlist, CabWriter already knows the size of each of the parts and extracts the rest of the attributes from the Extended Entity Info and creates the cutlist.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see how CabWriter’s cut list export works…

Door and Drawer Schedules

It’s very common these days for cabinetmakers to purchase drawer box and/or door assemblies from outside suppliers. To this end, CabWriter can optionally generate and door, drawer front and drawer box schedules listing the quantity and dimensions of each assembly including the quantity and part numbers of the drawer slides as shown on the right.

Note: Door and drawer front reports are only available in CabWriter Pro.  The drawer box report is available in CabWriter Home.

Rough Lumber Report (Used to be called the Stiles and Rails report)

This CabWriter Pro only feature sorts all of the rough lumber parts in the project, including the FF, end and back panel, and door stile and rails into a rip schedule showing the total linear feet for each thickness/width combination, and a cross cut schedule showing the number of parts for each thickness/width/length combination plus the total board feet needed for each solid wood species. Also encompasses any other rough lumber parts such as slab drawer fronts and toe kick applied fronts. CSV format allows for export to automatic material positioning systems such as Tigerstop or Razorgage.  (Used to be called the Stiles and Rails report)

Box Schedule (New in CabWriter 5)

Lists the sizes of every cabinet box, its type, and how many drawers each contains. This is the beginning of an effort to include more tools for project costing, and is particularly helpful when using a linear or square foot costing method.

Label Printing

Print part labels on Avery 5160 (1″ x 2 5/8″) or Avery 5163 (2″ x 4″) style labels with up to 5 lines of information on the smaller labels and up to 10 lines on the larger labels. Labels can be printed for cut list parts, stiles and rails only, and/or optimized sheet goods. Labels printed for optimized sheet goods are printed in the same order the parts appear on the sheets to save time when searching for labels.

Scroll down to see how to export production documentation…

Production Documentation Dialog Box

Excel (CSV) Export

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Labels

Screen Shot 2015-12-13 at 3.23.22 PM

Choose File -> CabWriter Production Documentation to open the dialog box. Prior to this, set up the scenes that you would like to use for each of the documentation types; cut list, door and drawer reports, stile and rail reports, and DXF files (CabWriter CNC only). The same scene can be used for all reports, or a unique one for each. For example, you might want to limit the DXF export to just the cabinet carcasses in which case that scene would only have the carcass layers active. Choose the desired reports and hit OK to generate a folder with the relevant documents exported to the same folder that contains the SketchUp project files.

A great feature that CabWriter provides is the ability to add additional information to parts in a model.  SketchUp has Entity Info, or attributes, for each part in the model and CabWriter extends that with its own Extended Entity Info. Not only can you can you assign the material type and name (as well as other information), but you can also add oversizing information to a part that subsequently shows up in the cutlist. This can come in handy, for example, if you build your cabinet doors oversized in thickness so they can be sanded to final thickness later and/or if you build your inset doors oversize so they can be fit to size later. Notice the highlighted door stile in the model to the right: the thickness, width, and length are all oversized which shows up in the corresponding line item on the cutlist. Both the oversized and final sizes are shown on the cutlist.