Guides for your first job, everyday design, and production output.
Create your first job
Start a customer job, set its details, and add reusable items.
Start from Jobs
Open the Jobs tab and choose New Job. Give the job a name and, if you use one, a job number. You can add customer, site, schedule, installer, and purchasing details inside the job.
A job contains its own copies of every cabinet or assembly you add. Editing an item in a job does not change the reusable item in your Item Library.
Add items
Add a starting item from the shipped catalogue or your Item Library, set its quantity, then open it to edit the construction. Use the Items tab when you want to create or maintain a reusable starting point for future jobs.
In Items, tap a shipped item to inspect its construction in the read-only 3D viewer. Its actions menu also offers View details and Copy to My Items for an editable copy.
Change dimensions, add parts, and keep relationships solvable.
Select what you mean
Tap a part in the model or choose it in the hierarchy. The inspector shows dimensions, position, material, edge banding, hardware, and operations that apply to that selection.
Dimensions may accept arithmetic and units. Casework stores physical sizes in millimetres and converts what you see when a project uses inches.
Relationships
Constraints hold parts to faces, openings, offsets, and even spacing. If a requested move would break those relationships, Casework refuses the invalid result and explains the conflict instead of silently changing the design.
Project settings
The gear inside the editor changes this item or job: units, cutting gap, materials, edge banding, and hardware. The Settings tab changes the defaults copied into new work.
Lay out rooms, walls, openings, appliances, and cabinet runs.
Lay out the room
Open a job and choose Design. In Plan, add cabinets, appliances, openings, field conditions, countertops, and walls from the library panel. Room width and depth are measured from the walls; move a wall to change them. Set room height, snap grid, and finishes in the room inspector.
Choose Add wall in the room panel, select a wall type, and choose Draw on the Plan. Drag from the start to the end; nearby wall endpoints snap together, otherwise the grid is used. Choose Cancel to leave drawing mode. Select a wall to edit its finished length or angle: its start stays fixed and joined walls follow. A warning names any joint that must remain open.
A closed wall loop contains the cabinets. An open run has no enclosing boundary. Corner cabinets attach to square wall junctions inside the room, or travel along a wall. Use the Corner picker to choose a junction or Along a wall to release it.
Place and repeat objects
Select a cabinet in Plan or Elevations and choose Edit item to customize it in the item editor. Choose Back to job to save and return to the same room and selection, then continue designing. The reusable library item is unchanged. If the job item represents several units, the edits apply to all of them.
Use the Corners tag to find corner cabinets. The frameless library includes an Over-range Upper — Door Pair, 30 × 18 × 12 in, with one adjustable shelf.
Fridges, ranges, dishwashers, and wall-mounted hoods follow walls and snap beside cabinets when dragged in Plan. Select a 3D object and tap the circular arrow beside it to turn it clockwise by 90° around its center. Turning releases its wall attachment; dragging it again attaches it to a wall.
The wall inspector starts with Length and Height. Length is measured between the finished inside corners. Height applies to every wall in the room. In portrait, the planner puts drawing controls below the job name so the name can wrap.
In Add Item to Room, use the visible Tags buttons to filter the order and library items. Multiple tags must all match. Search also finds tag names. Tap a selected tag to remove it, or clear the filters beside Search.
Select an item or 3D object and choose Duplicate object to place another occurrence with the same size and settings. The copy is selected for editing. In Elevations, the copy stays on the current wall and side. If no clear space is available, nothing is added. Duplicating does not edit the quantity in Order Entry.
Center Position measures wall-attached objects from the left or right as you face the object. Doors, windows, and field conditions also have center fields. Freely placed 3D objects use room X and Y for their center. Typing a corner cabinet's X or Y releases its corner attachment.
In Elevations, choose Add, then 3D object to insert an appliance, furniture, or decor on the current wall and side. The object uses its installation height or supporting surface. Use the elevation inspector to edit size, elevation, and center position.
Delete cabinets and rooms
Deleting a cabinet in Plan or Elevations also updates Order Entry. If none remain placed and the ordered quantity is one, the order line is removed. Otherwise, a quantity greater than the remaining placements decreases by one; extra quantities can remain unplaced. Deleting a room applies the same rule to each cabinet in it. The last room cannot be deleted. Undo restores the drawing and order together. Order Entry shows each line’s placement count and rooms.
Countertops
A following countertop stops flush at the cabinet edge when a range or tall cabinet touches the end of the run. Ends against returning walls also have no end overhang. A clear end keeps its configured overhang. Dishwashers remain beneath the countertop.
A countertop follows its supporting cabinet run. Joining two runs merges their following countertops into one slab; the first countertop keeps its material, settings, and notes. A notice names the absorbed countertop, and Undo restores the edit. Countertops with their own extent or drawn shape stay separate.
Stone over a diagonal corner follows the cabinet front and face overhang. Use the countertop inspector to edit thickness, overhangs, height, extent, shape, and material. Typing a derived value releases that value from the run; use its restore control to follow the run again. Sinks and cooktops cut openings using their cutout dimensions; check those against the manufacturer's template.
Check and issue drawings
Drawing sets include the overall 3D coordination view and an additional 3D view for each wall face with visible items. Wall views show the items on that face; empty walls do not add 3D pages. Elevation drawings and their dimensions use the same wall coordinates as the planner.
Use Elevations and 3D to review the room from different views and resolve every coordination issue. Choose Drawings to preview proposal, shop, or installer sets before sharing the PDF.
Configure materials, paint, joints, hardware, rates, and document identity.
Shop libraries
Use Materials, Paint, Joints, and Hardware to match what your shop actually stocks and builds with. New items and jobs copy these definitions so existing work does not change when the library changes later.
Settings
In Settings, enter your shop identity for estimates and drawings, labour rates and tax rules, new-job defaults, item tags, and DXF layer names. Review the benchmark prices and rates before using an estimate with a customer.
Create cut lists, drawings, nesting diagrams, and DXF files.
Export from the work
Open Export from an item or job and choose the output you need. Casework prepares the file, then opens the system share sheet. Choose Files, AirDrop, Mail, a USB destination, or another app yourself.
Transfer one job
In Jobs, open a job's actions menu and choose Export Job File. The .caseworkjob file includes its order items, job properties, room plans, and attached drawings. Download or reattach any missing drawing before exporting.
On the receiving device, choose Import Job in Jobs and select the file. It opens as a separate job with a unique name; existing jobs and shop defaults stay as they are. Job files must be 256 MiB or smaller, with each drawing no larger than 25 MiB.
DXF identity and names
Job DXF filenames identify the order line, rooms, and cabinet; per-part files also name the part. The drawing carries this identity above the geometry on the IDENTITY layer by default. In Settings, DXF layers, use Order and room label to change its layer or turn the label off. Turning it off leaves the filename identity. Keep identity and part text layers out of machining operations. Export filenames and DXF text use ASCII approximations of names; long filenames are shortened and duplicates receive numbers. Saved names keep their original spelling.
Check before manufacture
Review dimensions, material thicknesses, cutting gap, tool operations, grain direction, edge banding, and the DXF layer preview before sending files to a machine. A successful export is not a substitute for a shop drawing review or a machine dry run.
Keep a portable copy of projects, jobs, libraries, and defaults.
Create a backup
Settings > Backup & iCloud > Create a backup creates one Casework backup containing every readable item and job on this device, plus your shop libraries, item tags, estimating settings, and new-job defaults. An unreadable item or job is left in place and skipped, so review the backup counts before relying on the file. Save that file somewhere separate from the device.
Sync with iCloud
Settings > Backup & iCloud can opt this device into private iCloud sync. Casework keeps a local working copy and synchronizes projects, jobs, attachments, and shop settings through your Apple account.
If the same project or job changes independently on two devices, Casework keeps the iCloud version under the original name and preserves the other version as a dated Conflict copy. Review both and delete the one you no longer need.
Restore safely
Restore reads the file first and previews the result. Merge adds work whose identifier is not already on the device and leaves existing work and shop settings alone. Replace makes the device match the backup and can remove work that is not in it. Review the preview carefully before choosing Replace.
Look for the conflict banner and select the relationships it names. Change or remove the conflicting relationship before trying the edit again. Casework does not force a part through constraints that define the construction.
A file will not export
Resolve any validation issues shown in the item, confirm that the model has parts, and check that the device has free storage. For DXF, review the layer templates in Settings and remove characters your downstream CAM software does not accept.
Before asking for help
Include the Casework version and build shown in About, the device and OS version, what you expected, what happened, and the smallest backup or exported item that reproduces the problem. Remove customer information you do not want to share.
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