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Customize Default FreeCAD User Interface | FreeCAD Tutorial | Mechnexus |
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May 18, 2025
#freecad #freecadtutorial #freecadpartdesign In this video I have explained How to Customize Default FreeCAD User Interface. ▶️ Visit my website for more info on FreeCAD-: https://mechnexus.com/ ▶️ Get my FreeCAD Crash Course for beginner-: https://ko-fi.com/s/db924b973e ▶️ Download Source File of Tutorial-: https://mechnexus.com/mechnexus-youtube-tutorial-source-file/ ▶️ Buy Me a Coffee I am very grateful that you watch my videos and I am constantly trying to improve the quality of the videos on this channel. If you'd like to help me do this, please consider supporting me so that I can to continue to produce content for your enjoyment. 👉 Help support this channel by buying me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/mechnexus All donations will be used to purchase equipment to improve my productivity and increase the quality of the content that I produce. Your kind support will help to grow this channel. Even if it's just enough to buy me a coffee every little helps and this will be repaid in full through my sharing of knowledge.
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hello friends welcome to free CAD tutorial in our previous tutorial we have
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learned free CAD installation and its user interface in this tutorial we will
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learn how we can customize the free CAD user interface as per our requirement
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you can also visit my website macnexus.com where I write articles and
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tutorials on a free CAD you can also download my tutorial source file from
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the here you can also support my work by buying my free cat crash course for
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beginner it is a very basic level course for the beginner user where a beginner
0:40
user can master the free cat and you can also support my work on coffee.com you
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can buy me a cup of coffee you will get my website link and my ko-fi donation
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page link in a video description so here I have a open free CAD user interface
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and I have open a very simple part to customize the user interface go to the
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edit and then go to the preferences and here on the journal tab you will see the
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language options you can change your desired language from the here unit
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systems you can select unit from here if you are from the US then you can select
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the inch or whatever the unit you require it it has the mm inches everything
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is here and from here you can select the number of decimal places if you are
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using the IN system then set it to the three decimal places number format
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operating system style sheet style sheet is nothing but the themes you can
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select your desired theme for example you can select here the product and if
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you apply it so you can see that my free cat theme has been changed to the dark
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theme dark themes are very useful if you are working in a night because it puts
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less stress on your eyes now we again go to the settings and here I will set it
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to the no style sheet if you select here no style sheet means it will use the
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default theme and size of a toolbar icon so these are the toolbar icon if you
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have a visibility issue then you can change it to the larger size for example
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you can change it to the 32 and if you change it to the 32 you can see that my
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icon size has been increased I will again send change it to the medium which
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is ok our preview mode is combo view this is the combo view when we will do we will see
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it the combo view then we will do any part modeling size of the recent file
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list for if you go here in a free cad you will see the recent file so here my
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default setting is a for recent file you can increase up to the 10 so that whenever you hover on the recent file your mouse then you will get the 10 recent file list and here is the theme pack dark theme
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light theme and classic theme you can use any theme as per your requirement now go to the
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document section and here you can save auto recovery information you can
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increase that time or decrease your time so that if you reduce it to the five
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minutes then after every five minutes free cat will save the backup copy and
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keep rest of the things as default then selection here you can also set this
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settings as a default do not change this this also here is the report view options
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so report view you can by clicking on here on report view you can activate the report view
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and here on the setting page you can select what the report view should show
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now we will switch to the display sections in a display section show coordinate system in the
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corner so here at the corner it will show you the axis x y and z so the show the cross
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axis by default this is your choice and keep sitting as default navigations number of turn
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it here so keep this settings as default colors colors is a your depends upon your visibility
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you can change it now go to the work benches so work benches I will explain you what are
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the work benches then we will come to the here so work benches are nothing but
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our tools in a free CAD and some of the work benches are the default work benches
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which comes with a free CAD installations and some work benches are
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developed by the independent developers so to install the work benches go to the
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tool then add-on manager and here you will get the option for the work benches
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like here I have installed the a2 plus I have already installed it so install any
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work benches just select the workbench and install it for example this dodo
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workbench you can just click on install and you can install the work benches so
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this is the workbench setting which will we understand we will go to the edit
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then preferences and the work benches so if you click on the auto load options so
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that workbench will load when you restart your free CAD then here is the python module if you are a python expert then you can go for the this options python then add manager keep sitting as default and from
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export and import export and import here you will get the supported files which
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free cat support for example step you can customize the settings for the step
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IGS but I would recommend keep sitting as default until and unless you have the
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clear idea or clear understanding because if you misconfigure these settings then you will hardly able to find out what went wrong so most common
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file standard we use is a DXF DWG and IGSN step for 3d it is IGSN step and for
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the step file you can select the schemes available here so AP 214 is the
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international standard keypad is default and then we will go to the start
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page on start page when you start the free CAD then you can set the your
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default workbench for example I used to use a part design workbench a lot for
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part modeling so I want that whenever I restart the free CAD then part design
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workbench should load by default so here is you can set your default workbench
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then here is a shape and appearances measures you can customize the setting
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and here is a measure setting so I would give brief intro about it what it
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exactly is so in free CAD we have the option of a measuring tool for example I
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wanted to measure the distance between this point to this point so I will
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select the measure I will select this age and this age so you can see that
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free CAD showing the dimension in XY and Z directions but I want to change the
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color of the dimension which you can easily do so go to the edit and that
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preferences here in the major instead of this red I want yellow for example I
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will say ok and apply I will clear the dimensions and I again measure it this
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point to this edge so you can see that red has been removed and yellow has came
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so you can give the color as per your choice and for the sketcher sketcher is
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very important I will give the sketcher settings let's understand for example I
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create a part and my background color is a gradient type so if I create a body and I create a sketch on exit plane and I say sketch and if I draw a simple rectangle and I give the dimensions so you can see that my dimension color is yellow because
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I have set it to the yellow but if you are using any light background then this yellow
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color will not be look good so for this go to the edit and preferences and go to
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the sketcher and colors so here is a dimensional constraint color so I will
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show you by changing on color instead of this yellow I give the pink and I say
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apply so you can see that my dimension color has been changed so in a sketcher
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color you can change the color setting as per your theme if you are
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using the dark theme then you should use white color and light color which would
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reflect which will looks good on your theme so in this case I keep it to the
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yellow now we have created this rectangle now we will switch to the part
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design and I close it and I create a pad so here on the pad here is a we have
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when we edit any feature so in a model and task there are two tabs in model
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tabs we get the tree in task tabs the current feature which we are working on
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now we will go to the settings page so we have covered all the settings available
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here and if you install any workbench then you will also get that settings for
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example if I go with the tech draw and I go to the edit and preferences then I
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will also get the tech draw settings so this settings is applicable when we are
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going to create a 2d drawing in free CAD and one more thing I want to explain
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that instead of work benches you can also use the micros. Micros are nothing
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but the Python script and you can install in the same way you install the
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workbenches and you can also customize your mouse setting for mouse setting you
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can use the available mouse setting available here for blender for CAD
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gestures opens CAD revit you can visit the free CAD Wikipedia page which I will
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show you you can visit this freeCAD.org slash mouse navigations you can
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understand how the mouse navigations works for the blender cad navigations gesture navigations Maya gesture navigation and according to that you can
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set your mouse setting so this is all about how to customize the freeCAD user
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interface thank you for watching and thank you for your valuable time