Project, group, and parts

Panelgator organizes your project around a simple hierarchy: a project contains one or more groups, and each group contains one or more parts.

The project

A project gathers an entire job’s cut list. You can save it to a .pnlg file and reopen it later on any machine running Panelgator.

It contains:

• the groups
• the parts
• the stock.

The project has a name (editable directly in the title bar) which appears in every export (PDF, DXF, labels).

The group

A group represents a piece of furniture, an element, or any coherent set of parts.

Each group has:

• A name (free-form, put whatever you want)
• Overall dimensions (optional, Height × Width × Depth in mm) — useful to sanity-check the parts that make it up
• A multiplier (× 1 by default) — multiplies every part in the group by that number.

Groups are optional; you can create parts without a group. Their role is to structure the cut list and organize exports by the chosen sort. See Cut list grouping.

A concrete example

You have 3 identical cabinets to build. Instead of entering the same parts three times, you create a single group Cabinet with multiplier × 3. Panelgator automatically multiplies each part in the group by 3 in the cutting layout.

The part

A part corresponds to an individual panel to cut. It has the following characteristics:

• Label — “Left side”, “Shelf”, “Door”…
• Length × Width — length is always the larger dimension
• Quantity — number of units of the part
• Material — reference to a material defined in the Stock tab
• Grain direction — the part’s grain orientation, parallel to its length or its width (see Grain direction and edges)
• Edge banding — which sides have applied edge banding (see Grain direction and edges)
• Type — part category (Body, Front, Drawer…), useful for filtering (see Part types)
• Note — free text

Note

• A valid part must have at minimum a label, dimensions, and a quantity.
• A part’s thickness is defined by the stock material assigned to it.

Hierarchy in practice

Project "Dupont Kitchen"
├── Group "Base cabinet A" (× 3)
│   ├── Left side          720 × 580
│   ├── Right side         720 × 580
│   ├── Top                596 × 580
│   ├── Bottom             596 × 580
│   ├── Back               712 × 580
│   └── Adjustable shelf   592 × 568   (× 2)
│
├── Group "Oven column" (× 1)
│   ├── Left side          2200 × 580
│   ├── Right side         2200 × 580
│   └── ...
│
└── Group "Fronts" (× 1)
    ├── Door               715 × 396   (× 6)
    └── Drawer front       296 × 568   (× 9)

At compute time, Panelgator applies each group’s multiplier and automatically places all resulting parts on the Stock panels.

Example: the group “Base cabinet A” (× 3) contains 7 parts = 21 parts to place.

Good to know

• You can filter the parts list by text (search within label + group name)
• You can select multiple parts and apply a bulk action (change the material, grain direction, edge banding, delete them…)
• Bumping the quantity of an existing part is cheaper than recreating it if it’s strictly identical
• Numeric fields accept math expressions. Type 2800-2*19 to get 2762.

What’s next

• Part types — the category attribute and how to use it
• Grain direction and edges — how to set grain orientation and visible edges
• Stock and materials — how to declare your available panels