I post this in every FreeCAD thread: If you're going to start designing something with it, use the spreadsheet tool to make everything parametric. You'll save yourself a ton of time as your designs get more complicated.

Maybe this isn't anything new to experience CAD users. I don't know if other CAD tools do this as I started using FreeCAD after playing with 3D printing.

▲ acrophobic 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can also use VarSet[0], which I think is easier than spreadsheet since you don't have to switch the workbench.

[0]: https://wiki.freecad.org/Std_VarSet

	▲	2muchcoffeeman 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Did not know about this. How do you see all the properties?

▲ sho_hn 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's very common (Fusion calls it User Parameters, etc.) and indeed nice practice. FreeCAD has a few ways to do it, Spreadsheets but also free-form properties on objects. It's very flexible in this regard.

▲ gligorot 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The Fusion implementation sucks. A spreadsheet is a far more natural way to do this, Im surprised FreeCad is doing it better than the paid variant.

▲ Lukas_Skywalker 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The only issue I have with the Spreadsheet is that I need to add an alias for every value I want to use in the Sketch or Part Design workbench. In practice, this usually looks like

    A       B
    width   2mm
    length  3mm

and for every cell in B I add an alias with the same value as in column A. Is there a way around that?

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aib 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

VarSets[0] introduced recently in 1.0 and mentioned in a grand-aunt comment are a good alternative to spreadsheets used this way.

[0]: https://wiki.freecad.org/Std_VarSet

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_whiteCaps_ 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

https://wiki.freecad.org/Macro_EasyAlias

EasyAlias macro maybe?

	▲	Lukas_Skywalker 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Oh. I didn't even know there were macros. But that looks very useful!

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jjkaczor 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Hmmm - I seem to recall there was at least 1-2 scripts or macros available to help with aliasing.

▲ sho_hn 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The Fusion implementation is awful - you can adjust one variable, one time, then you have to reopen the dialog to do another. At least for me it's always become non-responsive after a single edit, for years now. I've always assumed I'm just holding it wrong, but I don't know. I've moved on.

▲ _whiteCaps_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Super flexible. I love being able to use Python to manipulate spreadsheet data.

▲ lagrange77 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some CAD systems, i think NX for example, let you give it a reference to an actual Excel (or csv?) file, that you edit in Excel.

▲ bmicraft 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Or don't and adjust it in the sketcher? If you name your constrains you can just reference them directly elsewhere.

I think that's much easier as you don't have to go back and forth with a spreadsheet.

	▲	dmonitor 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Tracking down individual values in the sketcher can get annoying too. Just depends on the complexity of your part

▲ IshKebab 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Other cad tools do support this but in my experience it's always pretty awkward to use. I haven't tried the FreeCAD implementation.