Sandbox:Main Page

This is the documentation wiki of FreeCAD. The information contained here is what forms the offline documentation shipped with FreeCAD itself. You have two main ways to browse through the documentation: by exploring user hubs, or by following the manual. Remember, it is a work in progress, written by the community of users and developers of FreeCAD. If you find information that is wrong or missing, please help to fix it!

User hubs
Users hub: This page contains documentation useful for FreeCAD users in general: a list of all the workbenches, detailed instructions on how to install and use the FreeCAD application, tutorials, and all you need to get started.

Power users hub: This page gathers documentation for advanced users and people interested in writing python scripts. You will also find there a repository of macros, instructions on how to install and use them, and more information about customizing FreeCAD to your specific needs.

Developers hub: This section contains material for developers: How to compile FreeCAD yourself, how the FreeCAD source code is structured and how to navigate in it, and how to develop new workbenches, or embed FreeCAD in your own application.

Manual
The FreeCAD manual is another, more linear way to present the information contained in this wiki. It is made to be read like a book, and will gently introduce you to many other pages from the hubs above.

Command reference
The Commands Reference section contains a complete list of all the available FreeCAD commands, with description and explanations. It forms what is shown to you by the "what's this?" button inside FreeCAD.

How to participate
There is plenty to do inside the FreeCAD project, if you are interested in helping us. There are programming tasks, for C++ or python programmers, but there are also many things you can do even if you cannot code, such as writing documentation, helping newcomers, translating the application and documentation, help packaging the latest release of FreeCAD for your favourite operating system, or simply help other people to discover FreeCAD around you. The help FreeCAD page describes it all with more details. Since 2016, FreeCAD is also participating to the Google Summer of Code.

Source code
FreeCAD can be compiled using cMake. The git link is https://github.com/FreeCAD/FreeCAD and there are build instructions for Windows, Unix/Linux and MacOSX.

About the development
Check the Development roadmap for news about what is being planned, the Changelog and Roadmap pages on the FreeCAD tracker to see the progresses towards next release, or the Project statistics for even more information about the FreeCAD codebase. All the development communication happens on the forum, so be sure to visit it if you are interested in participating.