[cabwriter]

Hi Brent,

Funny, those were the two programs I used before starting on SketchUp. It certainly helps to have knowledge of other CAD programs, but as you may have found already, SketchUp is a bit of a different paradigm which stymied me at first until I met my partner Joe and he taught a class at our school that I took. Turns out, once you learn a few basic tricks, it’s a much simpler program to use than the two you’re used to and it has an enormous amount of power.

If you haven’t already run across it, you should definitely run through Joe’s one hour intro to SketchUp here:

Sketchup Basics Video Tutorial

It quickly puts you on the right path and if you have CAD background, you should be able to take off from there. If you want to go deeper, Joe has an online class and a book you can purchase. You’ll find them under SketchUp -> SketchUp training on our website…

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Brent,

Welcome to CabWriter. CabWriter itself doesn’t have any special tools for doors and windows. You simply use standard SketchUp tools to punch a hole in the wall wherever there’s a door or window. If you want to get fancy, you can get a huge selection of pre-drawn doors and windows on the SketchUp 3D warehouse. Me personally, I just punch holes in the walls most of the time as I am less interested in a realistic looking door and window as I am with the location of them. Once in awhile, if a customer requests it, I’ll actually put a door or window in.

It does point up that you want to become moderately proficient in SketchUp itself before tackling CabWriter which rides on top of SketchUp.

Hope this helps…

Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Michael,

Do you have other plugins running besides SketchUp? If so, could you disable them and see if that helps? Also, I know this might be harder to check, but it would be interesting to know if SketchUp crashes at the same rate if CabWriter is disabled also.

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Michael,

That has to do with your CabWriter to Layout settings. Go to File -> CabWriter to LayOut -> LayOut Document Setup and set the margins. I’ve included a screenshot of the settings that I use for your reference. Basically, you’re telling CabWriter what portion of the page to use so that it doesn’t land on top of your title block areas. These settings should be made prior to sending the scenes to LayOut, so you might need to delete the LayOut file and do it again.

Thanks,
Greg

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[cabwriter]

Hi There,

My first guess would be that the units in SketchUp might be set to 1/16″ precision instead of 1/64″ as we recommend. As a first step, open Window->Model Info and choose Units at the bottom left. You should make sure everything is setup like the screenshot I’ve included below. If that doesn’t do the trick, I may need to have Joe chime in with other ideas.

Thanks,
Greg

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[cabwriter]

Hi Ronald,

Something odd is going on, you’re right. It appears to have something to do with using one email address for your username and a different one as the email when you purchased, which was the gmail account. It seems to be tying your Pro/CNC purchase to the gmail address and the free trials to your other email address. Maybe you could email me at [email protected] with more details about which email you’re using when you login. I may have to temporarily change your password so I can login as you to try and sort it out, but I don’t want to publish your user information on this forum, so we can do it in a separate email thread if that works for you…

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Dan,

Sorry, I should’ve been more specific. It’s on the Face Frame tab. You can see it in the screenshot below. The checkbox will not be checked as in this example, but it still uses the width of the connector stile to make the calculation, I believe. Let me know how you make out…

Thanks,
Greg

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[cabwriter]

Hi Dan,

Joe might have to fact check me on this one, but the first thing would be to look at your setting for connector stile width. Even though you’re not drawing the connector stile, I believe CabWriter is still looking at that parameter do determine what you might think of as a virtual connector stile with and since your side setback is set to zero you’re getting a gap. The side setback parameter of zero tells cabwriter to flush the virtual connector stile edges with the face of the cabinet sides. So, if you have a 38mm connector stile width and 16mm x 2 sides = 32mm, then you would end up with a 6mm gap between the cabinets. So, the first thing to try is to set your connector stile width to 32mm. It might also work to put the side setback to 3mm, but that might cause other problems. Let me know if this works…

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Steve,

You typically get that error if you use a license key that is for an older version of CabWriter. I notice you have a CabWriter 2, 3, and 4 license under your name. I’m suspecting you put in one of the older license keys. The CAbWriter 4 one should start with PRO04. I am going to email you your CabWriter 4 license key just to make sure you have it to your email address.

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi There,

Unfortunately, no, that’s the only method we would have right now. It’s never been a focus, really, because the only situation you need something like that is when you’re using solid wood panels. In that case, you really have to make the decision on actual size at the time you’re building based on the time of year to compensate for seasonal wood movement, so it doesn’t really need to be on the cutlist with a gap put in there. In the winter, you have to leave more room than in the summer. For something like that, I generally don’t even care what the cutlist says; I always recalculate at the time I’m building. That’s why we’ve never implemented a parameter like you’re talking about. That said, you can always use the negative undersizing if you want to have it drawn that way.

Does that make sense?

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Bob,

The PDF you’re having trouble with is when you’re printing directly out of SketchUp? I’m assuming that’s the case since you said if it goes into LayOut everything is OK. Are you using Mac or PC and what version of SketchUp? Did it start after you upgraded anything, or just randomly started?

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Zack,

Whew! Glad it worked out. Thanks for the kind words.

Good luck on your work…

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Zack,

I sent you instructions via regular email on how to proceed. It was a screwup on my part this morning with the upgrade products.

Sorry about that!

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Zack,

Thanks for the feedback on our support! We’ll try and get this sorted out. However, for some reason, the screenshot of the actual error went missing in your post. Joe said he saw it for a brief moment, and then it disappeared, and now it appears to be gone for good. I can only see your order acknowledgement. Can you re-post the actual error message? Sorry for the inconvenience…

Thanks,
Greg

[cabwriter]

Hi Zack,

The problem is you’re trying to use your CabWriter 3 license with CabWriter 4. You have an active support membership, so you just need to go to this page and follow the upgrade instructions to obtain a new version 4 license:

Support

It’s working for you now because you get a 30 day free trial with a CabWriter 4 download, but it’ll expire in a month, so you’ll want to get your new license.

Let me know if you have any issues…

Thanks,
Greg

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by cabwriter.

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