You'll often find times when it would be convenient to e-mail a cutting diagram, rather than printing it out and sending a hardcopy. You might want to send the diagram to a lumber dealer for cutting. Or, maybe you want to share it with a friend who is building the same project. There are two ways to accomplish this:

Locked Project Files

Lock your project (Tools>Lock Project) and then save it to your PC's hard drive. You can then e-mail the file. The recipient will be able to open your file with the free CutList Plus Reader and view your layout diagrams, exactly the way you saved them. The secret to this approach is locking the project before saving it.

Print to PDF

Using one of the many PDF print drivers available on the Internet, you can print the layouts and, instead of creating hardcopy, you will be able to create PDF files that look exactly like the printouts. At Bridgewood Design, we use a free tool called PrimoPDF for this, but there are other widely available options. And, some versions of Windows come with a PDF print driver already installed.

The locked project file approach has the benefit of allowing the other person to make changes to the diagrams, and see the project cost information. The PDF approach ensures that no changes are possible, and allows you to omit any information you don't want to share.

Either way, it is easy to share your optimized layout diagrams through e-mail.