🪚 Cut List Optimizer (sheets and boards)
Enter your sheets or bars and the list of parts: the tool works out the cutting plan that uses the least material, with saw kerf, grain direction and reusable offcuts.
⚠️ Always check dimensions before cutting: optimisation helps you plan, it is not a guarantee. Allow for sheet defects, edge banding and saw squareness.
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About the Cut List Optimizer
Before having a cabinet cut at the store, or cutting sheets and battens yourself, you need to know how many sheets or bars to buy and how to lay out the parts. This tool automatically searches for an arrangement that uses the least material, taking into account the blade thickness, edge trim and wood grain, then draws every sheet and bar to scale.
How to Use the Tool
- Pick the mode: sheets (melamine, plywood, MDF, OSB…) or bars and boards (battens, studs, tubes).
- Enter the available sizes, with a quantity and a price if you like.
- Enter the parts list or import it from a spreadsheet (CSV); tick rotation when grain direction does not matter.
- Set the saw kerf and trim, then print the layouts or copy the cut list.
How the Optimisation Works
- Sheets: parts are placed one by one into the free spaces of the sheet using several rules (best area fit, best short side, best long side…) and several sort orders; the tool keeps the solution with the fewest sheets (or lowest cost), then the one leaving the largest offcut.
- Guillotine cuts: every cut runs edge to edge across the piece, as on a table saw or panel saw. Free nesting packs better, but some cuts are not straight through.
- Saw kerf: each part is separated from the others by at least the blade thickness (3 mm by default); edge trim removes a strip around the sheet.
- Bars: pieces are sorted longest first and put in the bar that leaves the least waste, with many trials; for 12 pieces or fewer an exact search finds the optimum.
- Lower bound: total part area (or length) ÷ the size of one sheet (or bar), rounded up. No layout can do better.
Tips
- Plan a test piece or a few centimetres of margin on large parts.
- Respect the grain for doors and visible shelves: leave rotation unticked.
- Trim sheets whose edges are damaged or out of square (10 mm is common).
- Keep the offcuts shown on the plan: they often make battens or braces.
Common Mistakes and Limits
- Forgetting the kerf: on a sheet cut into 10 parts, 3 mm per cut quickly adds up to several centimetres.
- Swapping length and width on a grain-sensitive part: the length always follows the sheet length.
- Approximate optimisation: for sheets the solution is very good but not guaranteed optimal; compare it with the lower bound shown.
- Cutting order: the plan shows where the parts go, not the cutting sequence; start with the cuts that cross the whole sheet.
Privacy & Security
- 100% in your browser: no data is sent to a server; your lists are kept on this device only.
- No sign-up: free and instant.
- Works offline once the page has loaded.