FAQ & Troubleshooting
This page covers the most common questions and issues reported by CutOptim users. Topics are organized by category. If your question is not answered here, contact support via the in-app chat or email [email protected].
Getting Started
Q: I just signed up. Where do I begin?
Start with the Getting Started guide. The quickest path to your first result: select a mode (2D, 1D, or Wood), add at least one stock sheet/bar and one part, then click Run optimizer. Most users have their first result within 5 minutes.
Q: Do I need to create an account to use CutOptim?
No — you can optimize without an account. There is a safety net in the browser: after every optimization CutOptim writes a local draft of your inputs, settings and result, and offers it back the next time you open the app — for up to 7 days, guests included. That draft is per-device and per-browser, and clearing your browsing data erases it, so it is a recovery net rather than a place to keep work. Saving a project to the cloud is a Pro feature: the free plan (signed in or not) cannot save projects or cuts — upgrade to Pro to save projects properly and to remove the monthly run limit.
Q: What is the difference between Free, Pro, and Workshop?
The free plan has exactly two limits: 3 optimizations per month, and it cannot save projects or cuts to the cloud (saving is a Pro feature). Every tool is available on every plan, including Free — there is no cap on how many pieces a single run may hold (a free run can be a whole kitchen or a full steel frame): PDF, CSV, Excel, SVG and DXF exports, panel labels, the offcut and material inventories, edge banding, cost-based optimization, material-specific mode, the cutting sequence, custom fields, company branding, and share-by-link. Pro removes both free-plan limits — unlimited optimizations and unlimited cloud-saved projects and cuts. Workshop adds quotation PDF export, grain matching groups (2D Panel mode only) and the two panel-saw settings — Max. cutting stages and Minimise rotation — plus a team workspace where up to 3 members share one project library; see the Team Workspace article for how it works. See Getting Started for the full comparison table.
Optimization Issues
Q: I clicked Run optimizer and nothing happened. What is wrong?
The Run optimizer button is never greyed out and it has no hover warning — clicking it either runs, or shows a short message at the bottom of the screen. CutOptim performs exactly one check before running: the active mode must have at least one stock row and at least one part row. An empty run never costs you an optimization from your quota.
| What you see | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| “Enter stock and demand!” | The Stock or the Parts table is empty (2D and 1D modes) | Add at least one stock sheet/bar and one part |
| “Enter wood materials and pieces!” | The wood stock or parts table is empty | Add at least one wood material and one part |
| “⚠ Stock not found” on a result card | A part’s cross-section matches no stock entry (wood mode) | Add matching stock in the wood stock section |
| The upgrade dialog opens instead of a run | Your monthly free-plan run quota is used up | Wait for the monthly reset, or upgrade to Pro |
| “Select a material for every row (material mode)!” | Material-specific mode is on and some stock or part row has no material | Pick a material for every red row, or switch the mode off |
A part that is larger than every stock sheet is not blocked beforehand. The run goes ahead and the piece is reported afterwards in the results as one that could not be placed.
Q: What does Material-specific mode do, and when should I use it?
Material-specific mode makes the optimizer cut each part only from stock of the same material — so 18 mm never comes from a 12 mm sheet, and oak never from MDF. Turn it on (the toggle in the Settings strip), tag every stock and part row with its material, and the plan is partitioned by material, in one run, across 2D, 1D and Wood. A part whose material has no stock is listed under “⚠ No matching material” rather than cut from the wrong board. Use it whenever a single job mixes materials or thicknesses; leave it off when everything is the same material. See Material-specific mode for the details.
Q: Does Material-specific mode use up more of my monthly optimizations?
No. One click of Run optimizer is one optimization against your plan limit, whether or not Material-specific mode is on and however many materials it splits the job into — the per-material partition happens inside that single run, so it never counts as two. On the Free plan a material-aware run therefore uses exactly one of your three monthly runs. (The Engine API works the same way: one request is one request against the quota, whatever its material tags.)
Q: The optimization runs but yield is very low (below 70%). What should I do?
Low yield usually has one of these causes:
- Kerf is too large — Check Settings and verify your kerf. A 10 mm kerf instead of 3 mm on a small-piece job will destroy yield.
- Rotation is switched off on your pieces (2D only) — The Rot. checkbox on each row of the Parts (2D) table is ticked by default, which allows the optimizer to turn that piece 90°. Unticking it pins the piece to the orientation you entered. If grain or face direction doesn’t matter, leave Rot. ticked for more flexibility. There is no such control in 1D or Wood, where a piece has only a length to place.
- Stock size mismatch — Very large sheets or bars relative to your pieces leave big unusable remainders. If you have smaller offcuts, add them as stock and star them so they fill first.
- Pieces are disproportionate — Very long narrow pieces are hard to pack efficiently. Consider whether they could be ganged differently.
- Too few pieces to fill sheets — If you’re only cutting a few pieces, they may not fill a sheet well. Add more pieces from upcoming jobs to batch the cut.
Q: The optimization takes a long time or freezes the browser.
Optimization is much faster than this question assumes: measured on the 2D packer, 500 distinct pieces take well under a second and 1000 take about a quarter of a second. It runs on the main thread, so the tab does stop responding while it works — but at those sizes you barely see it. Around 2000 pieces a 2D run takes roughly a second on a desktop and noticeably longer on a phone. 1D and wood stay fast even at several thousand pieces. If a run genuinely does not finish:
- Try splitting the job into two separate cuts
- Reduce the number of distinct piece sizes (identical pieces run faster than many unique sizes)
- Refresh the page and try again. Your last completed run is restored from the local draft, so you do not start from an empty table — but anything you typed after that run is not in the draft, so check the tables before running again
Q: Some of my demand pieces are missing from the result — they were not placed.
This happens when a piece cannot fit on any remaining stock. Check:
- The piece dimensions — is it larger than the stock?
- The quantity of stock — did the optimizer run out of sheets?
- In 2D, the Rot. checkbox on that row of the Parts (2D) table — if it is unticked, the piece is pinned to the orientation you entered, which may be what stops it fitting. Tick it to let the optimizer turn it 90°
Unplaced pieces are listed in the results, in a red-bordered box headed ⚠ Unplaced panels, naming each piece and how many of it could not be cut. In wood mode a separate box lists parts whose cross-section matched no stock.
Export & PDF Issues
Q: My PDF download doesn’t start.
Try these steps in order:
- Check your browser is not blocking pop-ups or downloads from CutOptim
- Try a different browser (Chrome is most reliable for PDF generation)
- Disable browser extensions that block downloads (ad blockers can sometimes interfere)
- Reload the page and run the optimization again — the PDF is built in your browser, so a script that failed to load on first visit is the usual cause
- If the issue persists, use the CSV export as a temporary workaround and contact support
PDF generation runs entirely on your own machine — your cutting plan is never uploaded to a server to be rendered. That is why the preview appears instantly and why the export works the same on every plan.
Q: The PDF is generated but the layout diagram is blurry or cut off.
First, check you are looking at the right page. A 2D export carries each sheet twice: a small in-flow copy so the document reads end to end, and then — as a closing appendix at the very back — one landscape A4 page per board, drawn as large as the paper allows. The appendix pages are the ones to work from; the compact copies in the middle of the document are a reference, not a shop drawing.
There is no paper size or orientation setting in CutOptim, so beyond that the fix is in how you print or view it:
- In your PDF viewer’s print dialog, choose Fit to printable area (Adobe Reader) or Fit (Chrome) rather than Actual size
- Print on A3 if your printer supports it — the viewer scales the page up cleanly, because the diagrams are vector, not images
- If a diagram is still awkward to read, the Detailed cut list page carries every piece with its size and position as text, so nothing depends on the diagram being legible
Q: DXF file doesn’t open in my CAD/CNC software.
CutOptim exports DXF in the R12 format — the most widely supported DXF revision. If your software can’t open it:
- Check that your software can read DXF R12 (virtually all CAD and CNC software can)
- Try opening in LibreCAD (free) as a test — if it opens there, the issue is with your specific software’s DXF importer
- Contact support with the name and version of your CNC software
Q: The CSV export opens with garbled characters in Excel.
This is a Unicode/encoding issue. In Excel:
- Do not double-click the file to open it
- Open Excel, go to File → Open
- Change the file type filter to “Text Files”
- Select the CSV and click Open
- In the Text Import Wizard, set “File origin” to UTF-8
Alternatively, open the CSV in Google Sheets (File → Import, encoding: UTF-8) and re-export from there.
Account & Login Issues
Q: I can’t log in — it says my email/password is incorrect.
First, try the Forgot Password link on the login page to reset your password. If you signed up with Continue with Google — the only SSO provider CutOptim offers — use that button instead of email/password: CutOptim does not create a separate password for SSO accounts.
Q: My projects have disappeared.
Saved projects live on CutOptim’s servers (saving is a Pro feature), so clearing your browser does not delete them — sign in again and they are there. If a project is genuinely missing, check you are signed in with the same account you saved it under.
Work you never saved is not necessarily gone. After every optimization CutOptim writes a local draft — your inputs, your settings and the result — into the browser you ran it in, and offers it back the next time you open the app, with a short “Restored your last unsaved optimization” message. The draft is kept for 7 days, needs no account, and re-opening it costs you nothing from your monthly quota. Its limits are worth knowing: it lives in that one browser on that one device, clearing your browsing data removes it, and it only holds the last completed run — so it is a recovery net, not a substitute for saving.
Whatever your plan, exporting a PDF or CSV of a finished job is still worth doing — it is the copy that does not depend on an account at all.
If a saved project is genuinely missing from your account, contact support with your account email — saved data is never deleted without explicit user action.
Q: I upgraded to Pro but still see the free plan limits.
Try logging out and back in to refresh your account status. If the issue persists, clear your browser cache and reload. If unlimited runs are still unavailable after 10 minutes of upgrading, contact support with your order confirmation number.
Plan Limits & Billing
Q: How many pieces can I add on the free plan?
The free plan allows 3 optimizations per month and cannot save projects or cuts to the cloud (saving is a Pro feature). Any single run may hold any number of pieces. Upgrading to Pro removes both limits — unlimited optimizations and unlimited cloud-saved projects.
Q: Can I downgrade from Pro to free without losing my data?
Yes. Downgrading does not delete your data — you can still open, re-run and export everything you saved. What comes back are the free-plan limits themselves: 3 optimizations per month, and saving is disabled (saving projects and cuts to the cloud is a Pro feature), so you cannot save new projects or new changes until you upgrade again.
Workshop Plan
Q: What does the Workshop plan include that Pro does not?
Five features are gated to Workshop:
- Quotation PDF — generate a client-facing pricing document with tax, validity date, cutting charges, and your company branding. The Excel workbook also gains a Quotation tab on this plan.
- Grain matching — group panels that must share the same grain character so the optimizer keeps them on one sheet (2D Panel mode only — it has no effect in 1D or Wood).
- Max. cutting stages — cap how many runs of parallel cuts the plan may need between turns of the material, so the plan matches what your panel saw can actually do (2D only).
- Minimise rotation — prefer layouts that turn fewer parts, but only where that costs no extra sheet (2D only).
- Team Workspace — add up to 2 colleagues (3 members in total) to a shared project library: any project a member saves belongs to the organization, everyone can open and edit it and its cuts, the per-sheet progress markers are shared, and members work on your Workshop plan. Only the owner can delete a shared project, and sharing is not retroactive.
Both machine settings stay visible and clickable on every plan: set one without the entitlement and the value is put back and the upgrade dialog explains why.
Q: How do I set up the Quotation PDF?
You need two things in place: (1) enable Show price columns in Advanced settings and enter unit prices in the Stock or Parts table; (2) run an optimization, then open Share & Print → Quotation PDF. A short form asks for the customer, tax rate, validity and any cutting, labour or margin charges before the file is built — there is nothing to configure in advance. See Quotation PDF for the full walkthrough.
Q: I run a small workshop with two employees. Is Workshop worth it?
For a two-person shop it usually is. You can add up to two colleagues to a shared job library: everyone works from the same projects and their cuts, the per-sheet progress markers are shared so nobody cuts the same board twice, and your colleagues work on your Workshop plan without a separate subscription. Only the owner can delete a shared project, and sharing is not retroactive — projects saved before you set up the workspace stay personal. On top of the shared workspace you also get the quotation PDF, grain matching groups, and the two panel-saw settings (Max. cutting stages and Minimise rotation). The one thing to know is that changes are not pushed live: a colleague sees your edit when they next open or reload the project.
Engine API (for developers)
Q: Is there an API I can call from my own software?
Yes. The CutOptim Engine API exposes the same cutting engine over HTTP, in all four modes the app has: 2D panels, 1D linear, timber with cross-section matching, and true-shape nesting of irregular polygons. Your software sends parts and stock as JSON and gets back the full layout, the cut plan (or the nest) and the yield metrics.
For most readers of this page the honest answer is that you do not need it. It exists for one situation: cutting plans have to appear inside software you already use — an ERP, a quoting tool, a machine’s own software — without anyone opening CutOptim. There is no interface, nothing to install, and the work is done by whoever writes that software.
Q: Does the Engine API change my Free, Pro or Workshop plan?
No. It is billed separately and changes nothing about the app plans: the optimizer inside CutOptim still runs in your browser, with the same limits as before, and nothing you do in the app consumes API requests. The monthly API quota belongs to the account and is only touched by calls your own software makes.
See the Engine API article for the detail, or the Engine API page for the current price and quota.
Data & Privacy
Q: Is my cutting data stored on CutOptim’s servers?
Saved projects and cuts live on CutOptim’s servers, but saving is a Pro feature — the free plan cannot save projects or cuts to the cloud, and if you are not signed in nothing is saved anywhere. Your cutting data is only ever sent when you save; the optimization itself runs in your browser. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
Q: Can I export all my data and delete my account?
Yes. Both controls are on your Dashboard, in the Privacy & data section near the bottom — there is no separate settings page.
- Export my data (JSON) — downloads a single
.jsonfile containing your profile, projects, cuts, offcuts and subscription records. It is one JSON file, not a ZIP and not CSV. - Delete my account — under ⚠ Danger zone. A dialog asks you to type your account email; once you confirm, the deletion happens immediately. There is no grace period and no undo: your account and every row attached to it are erased at once, and an active subscription is cancelled in the same step. Export your data first if you want a copy — afterwards there is nothing left to export.
Q: Does CutOptim share my data with third parties?
No. CutOptim does not sell or share your cutting data. Aggregate anonymised statistics (e.g. average yield %, popular material sizes) may be used internally to improve the product. See the full Privacy Policy at cutoptim.com/privacy.