Preferences Editor

The preferences system of FreeCAD is located in the.

FreeCAD functionality is divided into different modules, each module being responsible for the working of a specific workbench. FreeCAD also uses a concept called late loading, which means that components are loaded only when they are needed. You may have noticed that when you select a workbench on the FreeCAD toolbar, that workbench and all its components get loaded at that moment. This includes its preferences settings.

Without any module loaded, you will have access to two configuration sections, responsible for the general application settings and for the display settings.

Clicking the button in the lower left corner of any preferences display will set all of the FreeCAD preferences to their default values.

The general preferences settings
When you start FreeCAD with no workbench loaded, you will then have a minimal preferences window. As you load additional modules, new sections will appear in the preferences window, allowing you to configure the details of each workbench.

Units


FreeCAD is always in constant evolution, so the contents of those screens might differ from the above screenshots. The settings are usually self-explanatory, so you shouldn't have any difficulty configuring FreeCAD to your needs.

The display settings
The display settings affect both the appearance of the display and the behavior of mouse gestures. General appearance and behavior are set on the 3D tab; colors may be modified on the Colors tab.

Zoom at cursor
If set, zoom operations will be centered at the position of the mouse pointer. If not set, zoom operations will be centered at the center of the current view.

Invert zoom
Inverts the direction of zoom operations.



Import-Export settings
The Import-Export settings affect how files are imported and exported to and from FreeCAD. Note that the Import-Export preferences dialog offers file type settings for most workbenches but not every workbench is able to import/export all file types.

FreeCAD supports these file formats:

DAE
The Collada DAE (digital asset exchange) format is a standard file format for exchange of Mesh data. The Arch workbench can import meshes from .dae files, and export Arch and other Shape-based objects to the .dae format. The Collada import functionality in the Arch module depends on pycollada. If it is not installed on your system, Collada import/export will be disabled.

For the .dae format you can specify the following things:

DWG
DWG (from drawing) is a proprietary binary file format used for storing two- and three- dimensional design data and metadata. Since it is a closed source file format it cannot be directly supported by FreeCAD. Therefore the external file converter ODA is required.

For the DWG format you can specify the path to ODA. But note: All settings for DXF file format also apply to DWG.

DXF
AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange File Format) is a proprietary format to exchange CAD data between AutoCAD and other programs. To be able to import DXF-Files you have to install some libraries. To do this use the preferences option Allow FreeCAD to automatically download the DXF libraries. ??is this still correct or are the libraries now bundled?

For the .dxf format you can specify the following things:

IFC
Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) is a wide spread format to interchange data between BIM applications, used in architecture and engineering.

For this format you can specify the following things:

OCA
The OCA file format is a community project to create a free, simple and open CAD file format. OCA is largely based on the GCAD file format generated by gCAD3D. Both formats can be imported in FreeCAD and the OCA files exported by FreeCAD can be opened in gCAD3D.

For the OCA format you can specify the following:

Workbench preferences
Preferences for the more common workbenches are linked below. Some workbenches have no preferences. Other optional workbenches may not be listed.

A2plus Preferences

Arch Preferences

Draft Preferences

Drawing Preferences (none)

Fem Preferences

Image Preferences (none)

Inspection Preferences (none)

Mesh Design Preferences (none)

OpenSCAD Preferences

Part Preferences (none)

Part Design Preferences (none)

Path Preferences

Plot Preferences (none)

Points Preferences (none)

Raytracing Preferences

Reverse Engineering Preferences (none)

Robot Preferences (none)

Ship Preferences (none)

Sketcher Preferences

Spreadsheet Preferences (none)

Surface Preferences (none)

TechDraw Preferences

Test Framework Preferences (none)

Web Preferences (none)