Yes – in every licence tier, including the DIY version, which differs only in the number of parts. The recommended route is the supplied LibreOffice templates; Microsoft Excel and the XML interface work just as well. This saves time and prevents manual typing errors.

No. All WoodWorks licenses are one-time payments. You buy the software once and can use it on your system indefinitely. There are no hidden monthly costs or lock-in contracts.

Each license (DIY and Commercial) is activated on one designated PC workstation – as stated in the license terms. A second workstation, for example when switching between office and workshop, therefore requires its own license. Just drop us a line in that case and we will sort it out individually.

No. It was almost finished – it never got past the testing phase – but in any case it will not be shipped. As soon as a physical medium is sent, the EU Packaging Regulation applies: the padded envelope alone counts as packaging, and every EU destination country brings its own registration, scheme-participation and authorised-representative obligations. There is no small-volume exemption – thirty USB sticks a year are treated like a million parcels. The administrative effort would have exceeded the €30 surcharge many times over, so we discontinued the product. All licenses are delivered as a download.

As a consumer (private DIY buyers), you have a statutory 14-day right of withdrawal. You can easily revoke your purchase in writing via email or directly through our online withdrawal form. For commercial purchases, the statutory right of withdrawal under EU directives does not apply.

WoodWorks was primarily developed for wood cutting but is excellent for all rectangular flat materials. These include glass, mirrors, sheet metal, steel plates, plastics (acrylic glass, plexiglass), as well as cardboard and packaging.

WoodWorks "remembers" the language chosen during the first installation. If Czech was selected (possibly by mistake) during an earlier install, it persists across update installations. Uninstall WoodWorks (Start – All Programs – WoodWorks Cut Optimization – Uninstall) and reinstall a current version to fix this.

After installation, a link to the supplied spreadsheet template (LibreOffice Calc or Excel) is placed on your desktop. Use it to edit the parts list, base sheets, and settings, and to launch WoodWorks directly from there.

WoodWorks calculates in whole millimetres, so decimal places are not supported in the dimension entry. If you need finer resolution than 1 mm (e.g. 1/10 mm), simply multiply all your inputs by 10. Keep in mind that the outputs will then also be in 1/10 mm, and area-based results have to be divided by 100.

After installation you'll find a spreadsheet template on your desktop for data entry – LibreOffice Calc is recommended, Excel works as well. Alternatively, you can open an XML file (in the woodworks.xml format) directly in WoodWorks. For compatibility with WoodWorks 4.x, CSV files are also supported to a limited extent.

The WoodWorks Excel sheet contains macros that convert your data into a format WoodWorks can process. In Excel, open "Tools – Macro – Security..." and set the security level to "Medium" once. Then open the WoodWorks Excel sheet and make sure to click "Enable Macros" — otherwise the export won't work.

The Excel macros in the supplied woodworks.xls generally don't run under StarOffice/OpenOffice, since MS Office and StarOffice use different macro languages. The macros would need to be rewritten in OpenOffice's Basic dialect — this may be addressed in a future WoodWorks version.

Yes. The assignment is derived from the column headings of the import sheet. In the original, the columns are named "Kante oben" (top edge), "Kante unten" (bottom edge), "Kante links" (left edge) and "Kante rechts" (right edge), matching the view on the cutting plan. Adjust the heading row to your usual naming and the assignment will match your machine's logic.

XML is the standard format for project files. You can pass a project file directly via the command line:

woodworks.exe /IMP=myproject.xml

If only a single parameter is passed, it is automatically interpreted as an XML project file — so woodworks.exe myproject.xml works too. The older .CSV and .INI formats are no longer supported.

Choose landscape orientation for printing! If labels still don't appear, there's usually simply no room — the parts are too small even for the smallest font. Since printers typically have a much higher resolution than screens, part labels may still show on the printout even when they no longer fit on screen. In the woodworks.cfg file you can set the largest and smallest font size separately for screen and printer:

<graphic>
  <screen>
    <scripture font="Times New Roman" minSize="6" maxSize="16" prefSize="10" />
  <printer>
    <scripture font="Times New Roman" minSize="4" maxSize="14" prefSize="10" />

Yes, font size and typeface can be set separately for screen (<screen>) and printer (<printer>) in woodworks.cfg (minimum, maximum, and preferred size via minSize, maxSize, prefSize).

Yes. In the WoodWorks directory, copy the file woodworks-color.cfg over woodworks.cfg (e.g. copy woodworks-color.cfg woodworks.cfg) and restart WoodWorks.

Yes, in woodworks.cfg under the <graphic> section, separately for screen and printer, via the leftR attribute in the <legende> tag (e.g. leftR="70" means 70% of the width is the legend's left margin — at 80 the legend becomes narrower accordingly).

These buttons only take effect when a cutting job consists of multiple plans or sheets.

Print the optimization results in landscape orientation. This makes better use of the available space on the paper and keeps the printout clearer — especially with many parts, the part labels tend to stay legible.

Use a PDF printer. Especially when you change print-related settings in woodworks.cfg (the <printer> section, e.g. colour printing, labels, margins), this lets you conveniently check the result on screen. On Windows 10/11 a PDF printer ("Microsoft Print to PDF") is usually pre-installed; alternatively, free software such as cutePDF works too. The resulting PDF file can also be easily emailed or printed later if needed.

In the woodworks.cfg file, under the <labels> section, you can define any number of label formats and choose which one is active via <default name="..."/> (matched by name). Example:

<labels>
  <default name="70x41 - 3-bahnig" />
  <label name="70x41 - 3-bahnig" width="70" height="41"
         columns="3" rows="7" mleft="0" mtop="0" />
</labels>

width/height: label width/height in mm · columns/rows: layout on the label sheet · mleft/mtop: left/top page margins in mm.

No. WoodWorks keeps optimizing until you manually stop it (Optimization – Stop) and view the result (double-click the corresponding icon in the Top Ten list). Results are continuously ranked in the Top Ten list; it's normal for only a few distinct results to be found in some cases.

This message means that, accounting for kerf width, edge trim, and rotatability, one of the parts doesn't fit on any of the specified base sheets. Please double-check the dimensions of your parts and sheets.

[x] Position in the Top Ten list (1: best, 10: last) · GV: total waste · GP: total price · E: number of elite sheets used · R: number of offcuts used · M: optimization method used (internal info).

If you only enter offcuts with a limited quantity, WoodWorks flags this as a precaution, since no sheet is available in unlimited quantity. Add one extra sheet that is not marked as an offcut — WoodWorks cannot know in advance whether the specified quantity of offcuts will suffice.

No. When entering the sheet list, the respective base sheet must be marked as an offcut with a quantity greater than 0. If offcuts absolutely must be used, even when this significantly increases waste, enable "Offcuts mandatory" in Settings.

At least one sheet dimension that every individual part fits on must be available in unlimited quantity (i.e., not an offcut).

In Edit – Settings, raise the "elite sheets up to" value — better too high than too low. If the Top Ten list shows e.g. 42% waste, try 45% or 50% for elite-sheet detection and restart optimization; the reported waste should then decrease. The Top Ten list always shows the average across all sheets used — individual sheets may be higher or lower.

The "Parts rotatable (default)" setting in Edit – Settings only sets a default value. Rotatability must additionally be set for each individual part in the parts list — this allows rotatable and non-rotatable parts to be optimized together in one job.

Yes, with a small trick: enter the rods as "base sheets" with e.g. 8000 mm length and an artificially enlarged width (about 1/10 to 1/20 of the length), and enter the parts in the parts list with the same width. Also set the kerf to 0 mm in Edit – Settings. Without this trick, the cutting plan shows only a thin, unlabeled line.

In batch mode, WoodWorks runs without user input (Start → Optimize → Print → Exit). Printing and exiting occur once configurable criteria (waste percentage or time) are reached — ideal for integration into automated workflows. See the forum post on batch mode for details.

Yes. Mark the relevant sheets in the sheet list as offcuts (with a quantity greater than 0). Important: in addition, at least one sheet must be available in unlimited quantity (i.e. not marked as an offcut) — WoodWorks cannot know in advance whether your offcuts will be sufficient, and therefore needs a "restock" sheet as a fallback.

There is currently no fixed "place these parts next to each other" setting — WoodWorks does try to place identical parts side by side, but often prioritizes lower waste. The best approach: define the parts that need a continuous grain as their own optimization run and additionally enable banding (lengthwise and/or crosswise). This creates a much stronger "pressure" to arrange identical parts next to one another.

The total edge length is shown on the last plan of a cutting job. Alternatively, you can find the value via the context menu (right-click the cutting job in the Top Ten list) under "Überblick anzeigen" (Show overview).

The price is entered per sheet (not per m²). If you want to determine the material cost of individual parts — for example with weight-based prices for metal sheets — this is easiest to solve with a formula in the input table in Excel or LibreOffice.

The demo version is limited to 200 parts per optimization; printing of optimization results is limited (e.g. incomplete dimensioning). Entering your registration key turns the demo into the fully functional version without reinstalling. See the download page for details.