Reference · Using the Designer

Every Button in the Kitchen Designer

A complete tour of the free 3D planner — what each tool does, which ones hide until you look for them, and the dozen shortcuts that make it feel like a professional package.

🖥 Every control⌨ All shortcuts💡 The hidden tricks✏ Apple Pencil fixes

Most kitchen planners give you a room and a box of cabinets and leave you to it. This one is a real design tool — which means there is more under the surface than the first screen shows. Read this once and you will know where everything lives, including the handful of controls that are deliberately out of the way.

The short answer

Draw your walls, drop in cabinets and appliances, then move between the 2D plan, the 3D view and the elevation view. The AI can return up to four complete layouts for your room, and the itemised quote updates itself as you change finishes. Nothing installs — it runs in a browser tab, and you can start without an account.

01 The screen

Two regions, and no menu bar

The first thing to unlearn: there is no menu bar across the top, and nothing down the left. The whole tool lives in two places, and once you know which is which you can find any control in a second.

tool strip — save · load · add wall · catalog THE PLAN (2D) or the 3D room elevation (when you turn it on) RIGHT SIDEBAR logo · account language · theme 2D ↔ 3D switch Catalog Flip Board colours, counters, floor, hardware… Move Object Design Helper Quote
The canvas is the design. The right sidebar is everything you do to it.
The designer in 2D: the floating tool strip along the top of the plan, a wall run of cabinets with gap dimensions, and the right sidebar
The same two regions, live. A U-shaped kitchen, laid out by SW Design: the tool strip floats over the plan, and everything else sits in the right sidebar.
  • The canvas — the plan in 2D or the room in 3D. A tool strip floats along its top, and the elevation drawing docks underneath it when you turn that on.
  • The right sidebar — everything else: the logo, your account, the language picker and theme, the 2D / 3D switch, the catalog, the Flip Board of colours and finishes, the Move Object pad, the Design Helper and the quote.

That sidebar collapses with the chevron on its inside edge, which is worth doing on a laptop when you want the plan as big as possible. And the 2D / 3D button always names the mode you are going to, not the one you are in — if it says “Switch to 3D”, you are looking at the plan.

02 Starting

Pick a shape, or draw your own walls

Two ways in, and both end up in exactly the same editable plan.

From a template. The start page offers Single Wall, L, U, G and Single + Island. Choose one and you get a small dialog asking for each wall’s length and your ceiling height, with a Rotate button if the shape is mirrored from yours. Everything you type is in inches, and every wall stays adjustable afterwards — the template is a head start, not a commitment.

The U Wall template dialog asking for the back wall length, both wall depths and the ceiling height in inches
A template is a head start, not a commitment. A U asks for the back wall and both returns; every wall stays editable once you are in the designer.

Drawing your own. Hit 🧱 Add Wall in the tool strip and a length bar appears. Type a length and press Enter to drop each wall, using the direction buttons — β†’ Right ↓ Down ← Left ↑ Up — or the turn buttons β†Ί90 β†Ί45 180 straight ↻45 ↻90 to change direction as you go. There is an angle box in degrees for anything that is not a right angle, and holding Shift lets you draw at a free angle. Click Add Wall again — or press Esc — to finish.

Get the room right first

Everything downstream — cabinet fit, fillers, the quote — is only as good as your wall lengths. Measure each wall at three heights and use the smallest, and set the ceiling height from the floor’s high point. The measuring chapter walks through it, and the printable worksheet gives you somewhere to write it all down.

Selecting a wall brings up its panel in the right sidebar, where you can retype its length and adjust the neighbours either side. Right-clicking a wall gives you β“˜ Property… — the sheet where you set its name, height, thickness, whether it is a normal wall or an island, which side the design runs on, whether it carries a bulkhead (and how deep), and how each end closes.

03 Placing things

The catalog, and the one behaviour that confuses everybody

Open β–¦ Catalog in the tool strip and you get a searchable, drill-down tree:

BranchWhat is in it
CabinetsBase · Wall · Pantry · Vanity · Accessories (end panels, fillers, floating shelves, toe kick, glass doors)
OpeningsDoors (single, double, sliding) · Windows · Cut-outs
AppliancesSinks · Dishwashers · Cooktops · Stoves · Hoods · Fridges
MoldingsTop mouldings (crown, flat) · Bottom mouldings (light rail)
Drag adds. Clicking only adds when something is selected.

Drag a catalog row onto the plan and it drops where you release it, snapping to the wall and refusing to overlap what is already there. Clicking a row does something different: if a cabinet is already selected it quick-adds the new one beside it; if nothing is selected it only shows you a preview in the right sidebar. If you clicked and nothing happened, that is why — select a cabinet first, or drag instead.

Two faster routes exist. The πŸ” search box on the canvas takes anything — window sink B24 BER36 — and the results are draggable straight onto the plan. And with a cabinet selected, the Quick-add panel appears: press a bare arrow key to choose the side (↑ above, ↓ below, ← left, β†’ right), which also jumps the cursor into the SKU box so you can type the code and hit Enter.

A selected cabinet with the quick-add panel open, showing ADD LEFT OF SB33 and a SKU box
Select a cabinet and the Quick-add panel appears — here on the sink base. An arrow key picks the side; type a code and press Enter to chain one cabinet after another.

Windows and doors work the same way — drag them onto a wall, then use the editor that appears to set width, height, height off the floor and the gap either side. Cut-outs let you type an exact width and height before you drag.

04 Moving & selecting

The mouse and trackpad rules worth learning once

  • Left-drag on empty space is a marquee, not a pan — sweep a box to select several items at once.
  • Panning has three gestures — a middle-button drag, two fingers on a trackpad, or the space bar held down while you drag. The wheel and a pinch both zoom. Full list in the box below.
  • Ctrl (or ⌘) + click adds and removes items from a multi-selection.
  • Alt + click repeatedly peels down through stacked items — the fastest way to grab something hiding under a wall cabinet. Clicking an already-selected wall cabinet that covers an appliance also drops to the appliance, and clicking again pops back up.
  • Alt + arrow keys hop the selection to the next item in that direction — quicker than aiming at a crowded plan.
  • Click a GAP number and type the gap you want. With an item selected on that wall, clicking the dimension asks for a width in inches and slides the item until the gap is exactly that.
No middle button? The plan is happy on a trackpad.

A laptop trackpad has no wheel to press, so the plan takes the gestures you already use everywhere else on the machine: slide two fingers to move the plan, pinch to zoom. And if you would rather not learn a gesture at all, hold the space bar and drag — the hand tool every photo editor has. That one works with anything: trackpad, mouse, trackball or pen. The same three gestures move all three drawings — the plan, the elevation and the countertop page — so there is one thing to learn, not three.

GestureWhat it does on the plan, the elevation and the countertop drawing
Two fingers on the trackpadPan — the plan follows your fingers, sideways as well as up and down
Pinch, or ⌘ / Ctrl + scrollZoom, centred on the pointer
Space bar + dragPan — any device, any tool, nothing to switch on
Middle-button dragPan — unchanged, for anyone who already has the habit
Scroll wheelZoom, centred on the pointer
Shift + scrollSlide the plan sideways

The designer works out which device you are on from the way the scroll arrives, and a wheel mouse keeps zooming exactly as it always did. If it ever guesses wrong — a wheel that slides the plan instead of zooming, or a trackpad that zooms when you wanted to slide — pin it down by hand in ⚙ 2D Settings → Plan View → Pan & Zoom Input: Auto Mouse Trackpad. The choice is remembered in that browser.

For precise moves, open Move Object in the right sidebar: a direction pad for forward, back, left, right, up and down, and a Step box that accepts decimals, fractions or both — 1.5 11/16 1 11/16 all work. Below it, πŸ“¦ Pack gathers the selected items (or everything, if nothing is selected) into one group you can move and rotate together with ⟲ ⟳ and a degrees box.

Right-clicking a cabinet gives you the option a drag cannot: βœ₯ Move (click new spot) picks the item up and drops it wherever you click next — including onto a different wall. Right-click or Esc cancels.

05 The 2D tool strip

Every button along the top of the plan

ButtonWhat it does
οΌ‹ NewClear the plan and start a fresh kitchen
β†Ί Undo / ↻ RedoStep back and forward through changes (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y)
πŸ’Ύ SaveWrite the design back to the project it was opened from
⧉ Save AsSave a copy as a new project, leaving the original untouched
🌐 PublishShare the design in the public community gallery
πŸ“‚ LoadOpen the design library and pick a saved design
⬇ ExportChoose which drawings to put in a PDF, or send them to Drive
🧱 Add WallDraw the room — click again to finish
β–€ ElevationShow or hide the wall elevation drawing under the plan
β–¦ CatalogCabinets, openings, appliances and mouldings
⌐ Design PreferenceThe placement rules this design follows — default heights, gaps, fillers
☰ ListEvery item placed in the design, numbered
β–­ CountertopA dimensioned drawing of every countertop run, ready for a fabricator
✎ Manual CountertopDraw the countertop shapes by hand instead of auto-generating them
πŸ“ MeasureDistance on the plan and the elevation — pick a mode first; the three places you can measure
πŸ—’ Add NoteWrite a note on the plan or the elevation. While it is on, only notes can be moved
⚑ FastStops drawing the snap grid and floor shadow on a slow machine. Snapping still works
πŸ’¬ ReportAsk us a question about this design — it attaches the plan, every elevation and a 3D view automatically
βš™ 2D SettingsGrid, snapping, labels and the rest of the top-view options

The design’s name sits at the left of the strip and reads — not saved — until you save it; click it to rename. The 🧰 handle at the far left expands and collapses the strip.

Inside 2D Settings are the controls most people never find and then cannot live without: Smart Snap and Point Snap with their own thresholds, a Corner Cab Magnet distance (turn it down when you want to park a corner cabinet just off the corner), SKU names in the top view instead of item numbers, the elevation detail level, and Elevation Auto-Switch — which makes the elevation follow whatever you select, and which you turn off when you want it to stay on one wall. Hover a setting’s name and a small animation shows you what it does.

06 Elevation

The drawing your installer actually wants

The elevation is a straight-on view of one wall, and it is where you check heights, door faces and how a run reads. Turn it on with β–€ Elevation from either 2D or 3D; it docks below the plan and you can drag the divider to resize it. Reading one properly — and knowing what to check before you sign it off — is its own page.

  • S / M switch between a single wall and several walls side by side.
  • Each wall gets a name button. Right-click one to rename or delete that wall — the only place you can.
  • Drag a cabinet horizontally to slide it along the wall, or vertically to raise or lower it; the axis locks once you commit to a direction. Hold Shift to ignore point snapping.
  • Same mouse rules as the plan: left-drag marquees, middle-drag pans, Esc deselects.
  • The detail level (in 2D Settings) goes from plain boxes to door and drawer faces, to the real door profile of the colour you picked, to a full hidden-line construction drawing.
07 The 3D room

The toolbar you have to go looking for

Read this before you decide 3D has no tools

In 3D the toolbar is hidden until you push the cursor into the top of the view. The small ≑ TOOLS pill is the only thing showing. Move the mouse up there and the whole bar drops down.

The 3D view with no visible toolbar, only a small TOOLS pill at the top of the view
This is what 3D looks like at rest — the only clue is the small ≡ TOOLS pill at the top.

And there is a second twist: the toolbar has two halves that swap. With Edit 3D off you get the viewing tools; turn Edit 3D on and those are replaced by the editing tools. If a button you remember has vanished, that is why.

The 3D toolbar revealed across the top of the view, with a tooltip explaining the Quality button
Reach for it and the whole bar drops down. Hover any button and it tells you what it does — here, the three Quality levels.
Viewing tools (Edit 3D off)What it does
ElevationToggle the elevation drawing
BrightnessSlider for the whole scene
X-RayAuto-hides walls between you and the room. Right-click or scroll on the button to set how strongly
IslandHide or show the island independently of X-Ray
Hidden LineDrop the colours and show only outlines and door lines — a drawing, not a render
QualityClick to cycle 1 Fast · 2 Standard · 3 HD; the badge shows which. HD wants a decent graphics card
Photo (P)Render a high-resolution photo of the current view
3D PhotosThe library of photos you have taken
Render StudioAI-render the current view into a photoreal image
Slab GalleryWalk through a 3D showroom of real countertop slabs
SW DesignLay out a whole kitchen, or compare the generated layout variants
QuoteThe running list of what the design contains
Editing tools (Edit 3D on)What it does
Save / Save As / PublishSame as in 2D, without leaving the room
Undo / Redo 
Ceiling / BulkheadShow or hide both. Right-click for the third option: bulkhead on, ceiling off
Add BulkheadClick a wall to add one; with it selected, click another wall to move it
CatalogPlace cabinets without going back to 2D
SnapCycles off β†’ face-to-face β†’ edge-to-edge
MeasureCycles off β†’ face β†’ edge; click two parallel faces or edges to read the gap — how the three rulers differ
Wall LengthShow the wall dimensions in the room
IBLImage-based lighting — real reflections and soft ambient light
Move ObjectThe same nudge pad, in 3D
SStepSuggests the next cabinet from what you have so far
πŸͺ„ Design HelperType or speak what you want placed
The 2-second rule

With Edit 3D off, clicking and holding a cabinet for two seconds promotes the click into a drag — a deliberate delay so that ordinary orbiting does not shove your kitchen around. With Edit 3D on there is no delay at all: press and move and the cabinet comes with you. If dragging feels unresponsive, you are in view mode; if things move when you did not mean them to, you are in edit mode.

The same 3D room with Edit 3D turned on: dimension arrows, SKU labels on every cabinet and the editing toolbar
Edit 3D on. Dimensions and SKU labels appear, the toolbar swaps to the editing set, and quick-add works right here in the room.

Photo (P) deserves its own note. The first press opens a small panel — brightness, countertop staging, and whether to stage the surroundings with a number of props. Press P again and it shoots immediately, which is the quick way once you have your settings. Finished photos land in 3D Photos.

08 The rulers

Three places you can measure, and they behave differently

There is a ruler in the plan, a ruler in the elevation and a ruler in 3D. The first two are the same tool, armed by one button and working in both drawings. The third is a different tool that happens to share the icon. Measuring the room itself is a different job — that is the measuring chapter.

The ruler button does not turn measuring on

In 2D, πŸ“ Measure opens a small card of modes under the button, and the tool arms only when you click one of those rows — the button then goes green and the cursor turns to a crosshair on the plan and the elevation at once. While it is armed the card grows one more row at the bottom, Done — everything you measured stays. In 3D there is no card: that button cycles off F E P, and it is not on the toolbar until Edit 3D is on.

Numbers that appear on their own

The ruler is for a question you ask once. For the ones you ask constantly there is a second thing, and it is not the button: a small πŸ“ capsule in the bottom-right corner of the drawing. It has three settings and it ships on Off, because most of the time you are not measuring.

SettingWhat it does
OffNo automatic dimensions at all — and nothing is taken away either. The gap numbers, wall lengths and elevation dimension chains you already know stay exactly as they were, and anything you pinned yourself stays with them.
Auto dimensionsSelect an item and it measures its surroundings for you, in grey: out to the nearest neighbouring cabinet or wall face on each side. Hold Alt and hover a second item to read the distance between those two (desktop only — it needs a hover and a modifier key).
Space check (beta)A second opinion, not a verdict. It checks two things only — whether anything stands in a doorway, and how wide your walkways are — and says so on the page. Everything else it knows it has not checked is listed too, so you can see the shape of what is missing.

Those grey numbers are throwaway readings: they follow the selection, vanish with it, and are left out of exports. Click a grey chip and it turns teal and stays — from then on it is yours, it follows the cabinet as it moves, it saves with the design and it prints. Delete it and the grey one comes straight back. Along a wall the grey numbers keep out of the way of the gap labels that are already there, and a cabinet’s own wall never gets a pointless 0″.

Selecting several items does not multiply this: the plan draws four dimensions around the whole group, whether you picked five cabinets or thirty. In the elevation a selected item gets one horizontal row under the drawing, showing the gap on each side of it; the elevation grows to make room for that row rather than squashing the drawing. Shift + D mutes every dimension on screen at once when you want a clean look, and a reload brings them back.

Space check — what it looks at, and what it does not

The third setting on the capsule turns on a layer that reads the drawing back to you. It is deliberately small. Two rules are live, chosen because their answers are not a matter of taste:

  • Doorway clearance. Every door claims a square in front of it as wide as the door. Anything standing on the floor inside that square gets the square painted amber — the same judgement the designer already makes when you drop a cabinet there, only now it stays on the screen instead of flashing past. Wall cabinets and range hoods are exempt: they clear a walker's head.
  • Walkway width. The gap between two things that face each other across a passage, red under 36″. One aisle is one line, not one per cabinet — eight cabinets facing an island give you a single “31½″”, the narrowest point.

A panel in the corner of the drawing lists the results in five parts: what needs attention, what could be better, what it measured and was happy with, what does not apply to this design (with the reason in plain words — “there is no door drawn”), and, folded away, the six rules it does not check yet — the work triangle, clearance in front of appliances, counter landing space, wall-cabinet height, hood height, and drawers hitting doors. They are named rather than silently missing, because a half-written rule reads exactly like a rule that passed.

Click a row and the drawing jumps to it. A red row offers Fix to 36″, which moves the thing that can move through the same path a drag uses — and says “it cannot move” rather than pretending, when nothing there can. In 3D the same two rules show as translucent volumes you can walk the camera through, and in the elevation a blocked doorway is banded in its own column. The walkway rule draws nothing in the elevation: it is a distance across the floor, and there is no honest way to show it there.

None of this is saved, and none of it reaches a photo, a 3D export or a PDF — unless you ask. The export dialog has a Space check box that starts unticked every time; tick it and the PDF gets one appendix page listing everything, green and not-applicable included, headed by the two sentences that matter: these are common reference sizes rather than your local building code, and this version checked two things.

The plan — four modes, and every pick lands on something

Pick a mode and start clicking. Pressing πŸ“ Measure again only closes the card, and while the tool is armed the card carries a red “Exit measure” row at the bottom.

ModeWhat it measures, and what the clicks have to land on
Point → PointStraight-line distance; each click snaps to the nearer of a corner or a point on an edge.
Point → LinePerpendicular distance from the first point onto the line of the second pick — corners are ignored on that second click.
Line → LineThe parallel gap, so both clicks must land on an edge. Edges that are not truly parallel give you the straight distance between the two snap points instead.
Item centre → WallsOne click on a cabinet or appliance draws from its centre out to the wall on each side. Select several items first, then pick this mode, and all of them are done at once.

Every pick has to grab real geometry: cabinets, appliances and bulkheads offer their footprint corners and edges, rotated as they sit, and a click on bare floor is refused — the cursor turns to the blocked ring and nothing is placed. The snap radius is about 20 canvas pixels, roughly ten on a Retina screen, so get close to what you are aiming at.

  • A drawn wall offers its two ends and its centreline, and that centreline is the room-side face — the surface a cabinet back rests against. The preset layouts have no drawn walls at all, so there is nothing wall-shaped to catch in the two-click modes, though Item centre → Walls still finds the three faces of a preset room.
  • Countertops, doors and windows, mouldings, chairs, lights and decorations do not snap in the plan, and neither do sinks or cooktops — those are drawn by the base cabinet hosting them, so measure that cabinet.

What you get is a thin dimension line with open ticks and a rounded chip on its midpoint carrying the number — in fractions of an inch down to 1/16″, 36Β½″, the same way the rest of the designer talks. Set the length unit to millimetres in Design Preference and every one of these reads in millimetres instead; the stored value is the same either way, so switching back and forth converts rather than rounds. A distance that will not sit exactly on the display grid gets a dotted underline, and hovering it gives you the exact figure. Item centre → Walls lays two annotations, one per side, and a side with no wall in reach is not drawn.

Double-click a number and you can type a new one. The item moves so the distance becomes true, through the same placement path a drag uses — it collision-checks, it carries paired items along, and it undoes in one step. Not every number can be typed into: one measured between two things that are both fixed, or one anchored to a corner cabinet, is read-only and says so when you try.

On a touch screen there is no double-click, so long-press the number instead — you get a two-row menu, Change this number and Delete this measurement. A right-click does the same thing with a mouse, in the plan and in the elevation both. And in the elevation, the two halves of an Item centre → Walls row are editable the same way: type a new left-hand number and the item slides along the wall until that is true.

Measurements stay on the canvas, as many as you like.

  • Each one is anchored to the thing it snapped to, so it follows that item and goes when it goes. Changing the mode keeps every finished measurement and only drops the half-finished pick.
  • Click one and it turns amber; drag it clear of the drawing and it locks to one axis, trailing dashed witness lines, with the number unchanged.
  • Delete removes the selected one whether the tool is on or off — with nothing selected it does nothing, so you cannot wipe a cabinet while you are measuring. With the tool off, the number chip is the only part you can click, not the line: click the number, then Delete.
  • While the tool is armed the drawings are locked, the way Note mode locks them — no selecting, dragging or marquee until you put the ruler down.
  • They are saved with the design. Close the tab, open the project tomorrow, and they are still on the same edges. One whose cabinet is missing from the saved file comes back greyed out instead of quietly disappearing. Undo still does not reach them — use Delete.
  • When there are more numbers than there is room, the drawing does not turn to soup. A chip slides along its own line first, then steps off it on a thin leader, and only then folds into a small dot with a +N badge you can click to see what folded. Anything you measured or pinned yourself is never what folds, and an export is never thinned — the PDF gets all of them.
  • Esc clears a selection or a half-finished pick, a second Esc puts the tool down, and a right-click does the same two steps — which is why the usual right-click menu stays away while you measure.

The β–­ Countertop page is the exception, and really a fourth ruler: the same button opens the same card there, minus the Item centre → Walls row, and the picks snap to the countertop outline you drew. Those measurements are part of the design — they survive a save and Undo reaches them.

The elevation — same button, its own half-finished pick

There is no separate elevation ruler: one button arms both canvases. Each keeps its own half-finished pick, though, so a first click in the plan can never pair with a second click in the elevation. Everything else behaves as above.

  • Everything the elevation drew snaps by its corners and edges: cabinets, appliances, windows, doors, cut-outs, bulkheads, toe kicks and trim runs. This is where you go for a window, since the plan will not give you one.
  • Every wall column adds four room lines — floor, ceiling and the column’s two ends — so a cabinet edge can be measured down to the floor or across to the end of the run.
  • Item centre → Walls draws one row here, not two: a line spanning the wall face to face, with a tick at the item’s centre and a number on each half — 40Β½″, in the same fractions as everywhere else. Auto dimensions adds its own row the same way, in grey, and gets out of the way if you have already pinned a row for that item.
  • An annotation on a wall you are not showing is hidden, not deleted. Hiding a wall is not a way to clear measurements.

3D — face to face, edge to edge, and a tape measure

Turn Edit 3D on first. With it off the Measure button is not on the toolbar at all — that is why you cannot find it. The button cycles through four states: F face to face, E edge to edge, P point to point, and off. A green message tells you which one you are in, and Esc puts the tape down from any of them, so you never have to click your way around the cycle to stop measuring.

Face mode reads the perpendicular gap between two parallel faces — cabinet side to wall, appliance front to island — and edge mode does the same for two parallel edges. In those two the picks really must be parallel: more than about ten degrees apart is refused with a warning. You see it coming, because the face or edge under the cursor is outlined live, teal when the click will work and amber when it cannot pair with the pick you already have.

P is the tape measure, and it has none of those rules: click any two points and it gives you the straight distance between them, plus the angle off horizontal when the line is not level. It also reaches things the other two cannot — the countertop, the floor and the ceiling are all fair targets for the tape, though they are still not targets for face and edge mode, and never for snapping.

  • In face mode whatever is outlined is what gets measured, chamfers and mitred ends included. Edge mode is coarser: it offers only the twelve edges of the item’s box — the cabinet’s own turned footprint, a plain upright box for walls and appliances — so a mitred end or a door chamfer is not an edge you can pick, and a click too far from any of them answers No measurable edge here.
  • In face and edge mode the ray sees cabinets, appliances, hanging lights, drawn walls and bulkheads. The walls of a preset layout are not targets, and neither are chairs or decorations. The countertop, floor and ceiling answer only to the tape.
  • A press that travels more than a few pixels counts as orbiting and places no pick — click cleanly, or the camera moves and nothing is measured.
  • The first pick shows as a small teal ① badge, and the result is a teal line with a pill reading the distance in fractions down to 1/16″ — 24Β½″, ΒΎ″, 36″.
  • Right-click in 3D is not the cancel it is in the plan — it is a move. On a cabinet or appliance it offers “πŸ“ Snap this face onto…”, and the next left-click is the target the item travels to; the move runs through the normal placement path, so it collision-checks and undoes in one step, and only a wall-hung cabinet changes height. On a wall or a bulkhead, which cannot move, you get the ordinary 3D menu instead — and a right-click while a snap is armed cancels that snap.

The 3D numbers are editable too. Right-click one and you can type a new distance, close the gap to 0″ in one click, or — when both ends are cabinets — switch which end moves. It travels through the same placement path as a drag, so it collision-checks and undoes in one step, and the number afterwards reflects what actually happened: if a bulkhead capped the height or a neighbour blocked the slide, you see the distance it really reached, not the one you asked for.

You can leave several measurements up at once — a dozen, after which the oldest drops off and a note tells you how many went. Measuring the next one no longer wipes the last, and neither does a successful snap. Right-click one of the teal numbers and you can delete just that one, or πŸ“Œ pin it onto the plan, which drops the same distance into the 2D top view where it saves with the design like any other annotation. A measurement that stands straight up cannot be pinned that way — on a plan it would be a dot — and it says so rather than drawing a 0″. What stays in 3D is overlay only: not saved, and not in the picture when you shoot the view. A click on nothing puts down the half-finished pick, a change of mode clears the lot, and so does Esc.

Measure and πŸ—’ Add Note cannot both be armed, because they want the same clicks. Both survive a reload now, so the choice between them is about what you mean: a note is a sentence to whoever opens the file, a measurement is a number the drawing has to keep true. The plan and elevation pages of a PDF are drawn by the same code that paints the screen, so those measurements print — every one of them, including any the screen folded away — while the grey automatic ones and the 3D overlay do not. Neither ruler has a shortcut out of the box, though both can be bound to a key in Settings.

09 The Flip Board

Colours, counters, floors and finishes

The right sidebar in 3D is where the kitchen stops being grey. Each icon is a page:

PageWhat you set
Door ColorsThe door colour and style for the whole kitchen — and for Shaker doors, a custom paint colour
CountertopMaterial and colour, the backsplash extent, and whether counters auto-generate
FloorReal flooring products, plank width, pattern and direction — or tile with its own stone, size, grout width and grout colour
WallWall colour and finish, plus a painter for individual surfaces
HardwareHandle series, type and finish
LightingBrightness, under-cabinet lights, colour temperature, softness
MoldingCrown and light-rail styles and colours
Chair / Decoration / BathroomFurniture, props and bathroom fixtures
Cabinets / QuoteEverything placed, and what it adds up to
Two painters, and the same rule

On the Door Colors page, picking a colour with the πŸ–ŒοΈ Format Painter off repaints every cabinet. Turn the painter on and the next colour becomes a brush — click a single cabinet in 3D to paint just that one. Right-click to put the brush down. The Wall page works the same way for individual walls, ceilings and bulkheads, and its β†Ί Reset faces button is the only way back to a single wall colour once you have painted surfaces individually.

One more thing worth knowing on the Molding page: the auto-generate toggles are a 3D preview only. The two βž• Auto add buttons underneath are what create real mouldings — the kind that appear in the item list, in the elevation and in the quote.

10 Right-click

Most of the power is in the context menus

If you only learn one habit, make it this one: right-click the thing you want to change. The menu is different for every kind of object, and it is where the detailed work happens.

  • On a cabinet — rotate 90Β° or 45Β°, β“˜ Property, βœ₯ Move to a new spot, move or reset its label, put a countertop on it, add or remove crown and light rail, toggle the toe kick, add a 12″ cabinet on top, add a hood underneath, and delete. Side fillers and end panels appear here too, labelled with the real gap they will fill.
  • On a sink base — a one-click width swap between the sink-base sizes, plus add or remove a modern sink and faucet.
  • On a pantry — flip the short door to the top, and add trim sized to the cabinet’s height.
  • On an appliance — rotate, add an end panel either side, add a cabinet on top, property, delete.
  • On a wall — the property sheet: name, length, height, island or normal, which side the design runs on, bulkhead, and how each end closes.
  • On a countertop edge — the edge type (β—‹ double 1Β½″, β–³ single ΒΎ″, c/c clean cut against a wall), its overhang, and on exposed side edges, a waterfall.
  • On a countertop slab — add a sink cut-out (30×16) or a cooktop cut-out (29×20), then drag it along the edge or click any of its four numbers to type an exact dimension.
  • On a bare wall in Edit 3D — βž• Add Backsplash, then push each of its four edges in or out an inch at a time.
  • On empty space — right-click is the universal cancel: it puts down a painter, abandons a pending Move, ends the wall-drawing tool and clears a half-finished measurement.
Right-click menu on a cabinet showing rotate, property, move, countertop and a filler option labelled with the real gap size
Right-click a cabinet. The first row here is “Move SB33 to Center” — it appears because the sink base was selected before the right-click, and it lines this cabinet up with that one.

When two things sit on top of each other — a crown and a light rail are only a few pixels apart — the menu asks which one you meant first.

11 Let it help

SW Design, next-step suggestions and voice

SW Design lays out a whole kitchen for you, and it asks before it guesses. It starts by asking which walls to build on — tick the ones that get cabinets — and then opens an anchors panel: you say where the stove or cooktop, the fridge, the sink, the dishwasher, a pantry or an island should go, either by clicking the spot on the plan or by picking a wall. None of them are mandatory; anything you leave out it simply leaves out, filling the rest of the wall with cabinets. Two preferences sit at the top: the wall-cabinet height (or Auto, taken from your ceiling), and a base-only switch that skips the uppers altogether. Then it generates up to four complete layouts for you to compare.

The SW Design panel with the current layout on the left and the anchors list on the right, showing the sink and stove placed
Confirm the anchors, then let SW Design lay out the rest. The plan on the left updates as you place each one, so you can see exactly what it will work from.

SStep is the smaller version: with a plan in progress it suggests the next cabinet — which SKU, which wall, how far along — and tells you why. A steps box lets it place several in a row, and it will ask you a question when the answer genuinely depends on how you cook.

πŸͺ„ Design Helper takes plain language, typed or spoken: “place BER36 here”. The trick is the anchor — hover the mouse over the spot in 3D first and the target pins itself, so you can take your time typing. Press F5 to talk instead. It lives inside Edit 3D, so turning it on turns Edit 3D on too.

The πŸ“Ž upload button beside it takes an existing kitchen plan — an image or a PDF — as a starting point.

12 Saving & sharing

Save, load, export and the quote

  • Saving needs a Google sign-in. The first save asks for a project name and mints an ID and a share link, copied to your clipboard automatically. Every later save writes back to that same project.
  • Save As always creates a new project, which is how you branch a design to try something without losing the original.
  • Load opens the design library: folders you can create and drag designs into, a search box that takes a name or an ID, sorting, and a grid or list view. Hovering a name shows its thumbnail.
  • Export lets you tick which sheets go in — elevation, top view, countertop drawing, a 3D photo, render photos, even pictures from your own computer — preview the page order, drag to reorder it, then save a PDF. Save Local works without signing in.
  • Publish shares the design in the public community gallery. It saves first, so what people see is current.

The Quote page keeps a running count of what your design contains — wall cabinets, base cabinets, pantry, accessories, and the countertop area — with a box for a coupon code and a summary at the bottom. It updates as you design, so you always know roughly where a change lands before you commit to it.

13 Shortcuts

The keyboard

KeyDoes
Ctrl/⌘ + ZUndo
Ctrl/⌘ + YRedo (or Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + Z)
Ctrl/⌘ + SSave the project
Ctrl/⌘ + POpens Export — not the browser print dialog
Ctrl/⌘ + C / VCopy and paste the selected item
Delete / BackspaceDelete what is selected — note, measurement, wall, opening, cabinet or a whole marquee group
EscThe universal “stop that”: closes menus, cancels a pending move, puts down a painter, ends the wall tool, clears a measurement, deselects
Arrow keysWith Quick-add open, choose which side to add on
Alt + arrowsJump the selection to the next item that way
P3D — photo options; press again to shoot
O3D — open the doors. Nothing selected opens every door; one cabinet selected opens its doors and slides its drawers out
W A S D3D — walk the camera; Q and E move it up and down
F5Talk to the Design Helper
Shift (held)Free-angle wall drawing; bypass snapping while dragging
Middle-dragPan the plan, the elevation and the countertop page

You can bind your own shortcuts to most toolbar buttons in Settings. A few are reserved and cannot be reassigned: undo, redo, Esc, Delete, Backspace and O.

One to be careful with

Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + R does not refresh the page the way it does in a browser — here it wipes the design and reloads. If you want a plain refresh, use the browser’s own reload button.

14 On an iPad

Apple Pencil: why it stops working, in the order worth checking

An iPad and an Apple Pencil are the nicest way to draw a room — you trace the walls the way you would on paper. So it is worth knowing what to do the day the Pencil goes half-dead in the middle of a design, because the two most common causes are not on anybody’s troubleshooting list: a film on the screen, and a tip that has quietly unscrewed itself.

Ten seconds first — Pencil, or app?

Open Notes and scribble a line. Draws fine there? The Pencil is healthy — close and reopen the design, and check you have actually armed the tool you think you are using (on empty canvas a plain drag selects, it does not draw a wall). Skips in Notes too? It is the hardware. Work down the list.

The five standard checks

  • 1. Charge it, and confirm it is charging. A Pencil that attaches magnetically to the flat side of the iPad should pop up a little charge card within a second or two — no card means no charge is going in. The first-generation Pencil charges from the port instead: cap off, plug it in (with the small adapter on a USB-C iPad).
  • 2. Confirm it is actually paired. Settings › Apple Pencil should list it with a battery level. If it is not there, it is not connected — and check Bluetooth is on, because a Pencil is a Bluetooth device and Airplane Mode kills it.
  • 3. Forget it and pair again. Settings › Bluetooth, tap the ⓘ beside Apple Pencil, Forget This Device, then attach or plug it in again. A Pencil that was last used on a different iPad always needs this — it only talks to one at a time.
  • 4. Restart the iPad, then update iPadOS. Dull advice, and it genuinely fixes a Pencil that has gone unresponsive after a long session.
  • 5. Make sure it is the right Pencil for that iPad. Generations are not interchangeable: the ones that pair by attaching to the magnetic side will never pair with an iPad that expects the plug-in kind, and the other way round. If it has never once worked on this iPad, suspect the model before anything else.
1 · THE TIP BACKS ITSELF OFF pencil body tip half a turn loose contact with the sensor breaks and remakes → strokes drop out, or need a hard press fix: unscrew fully, screw back finger-tight 2 · THE FILM IN BETWEEN tip film glass · digitizer underneath gap every extra fraction of a millimetre counts → lag, offset lines, dead patches near the edges test: peel a corner back and draw there
The two nobody checks. Both feel exactly like “the Pencil is broken”, and neither needs a repair.

A film on the screen — or on the iPad’s side

A screen protector sits between the tip and the glass, and the iPad reads the Pencil through that gap. A thin, well-fitted one is fine. A thick tempered-glass, matte or “paper-feel” film is not always: the line can lag behind the tip or sit slightly beside it, light strokes stop registering, and the last inch near an edge or a corner goes dead. Privacy and anti-glare films are the worst offenders — some carry a metallic layer that interferes with the digitizer directly.

  • Location-dependent failure is the giveaway. Works in the middle, dies at one corner — that is a lifted edge, a bubble or trapped dust under the film, not the Pencil.
  • Test it properly: peel one corner of the protector back and draw on the bare glass underneath. If that patch behaves, you have your answer.
  • Do not forget the side of the iPad. A thick case, a folio flap or a wrap-around skin can hold a magnetic Pencil a millimetre off its charging strip — it then refuses to charge and keeps unpairing. Take the case off and attach the Pencil to bare aluminium to check.
  • Or a skin on the Pencil itself. Wraps and grips over the flat face block the same connector, and anything over the front section stops double-tap being felt.

The tip is not screwed tight

The tip is a screw-on, replaceable part, and writing pressure slowly backs it off — most people never think to check it because it still looks attached. A tip that is a fraction loose loses solid contact with the pressure sensor behind it, and the result reads exactly like a failing Pencil: strokes that arrive in bursts, lines that only appear if you press hard, pressure that jumps, taps that do not register at all.

  • Unscrew it all the way, then screw it back finger-tight. Snug, not forced — and make sure it goes on straight, because a cross-threaded tip behaves identically to a loose one.
  • Replace a worn tip. Tips are consumables. If the point has gone flat or grey, wobbles even when tight, or the metal core is showing through, fit a fresh one — they come in packs of four.
  • A third-party stylus is not the same thing. No pressure, no palm rejection, and it will mark the canvas with the side of your hand. If your “Pencil” came with a charging cable and no pairing step, this is what you have.

Symptom → likely cause

In one line each: nothing anywhere is a flat battery or a lost pairing; dead only near an edge is the film; bursts and hard presses are a loose tip; a line that lags or lands offset is a thick film; refusing to charge is a case in the way; and palm marks mean it is not an Apple Pencil at all.

What you seeUsually
Nothing at all, anywhereFlat battery, or never paired — check Settings › Apple Pencil
Fine in the middle, dead near an edge or cornerThe screen protector — a bubble, dust or a lifted edge
Draws in bursts; only with a hard pressA loose or worn-out tip
The line lags, or lands beside the tipA thick, matte or metallic-layered film
Will not charge; keeps unpairingA case, flap or skin holding it off the magnetic strip
Was working, then stopped mid-sessionForget the device and re-pair; then restart the iPad
Works in Notes, not in the designReopen the design; check the tool is armed, not just selected
Finger draws but Pencil does not, or vice versaA drawing setting — Settings › Apple Pencil
Your palm keeps leaving marksNot an Apple Pencil — no palm rejection

One thing you can stop worrying about: an Apple Pencil never needs calibrating. If someone tells you to calibrate it, they are describing a different stylus. And if the tip, the film and the pairing are all ruled out and it still misbehaves, that is the point to book it in — not before.

★ The tricks

Fifteen things you would otherwise find by accident

  • 1. The 3D toolbar is hidden — push the cursor into the top of the view, or click the ≑ TOOLS pill.
  • 2. Edit 3D swaps the entire toolbar. Missing buttons are on the other half.
  • 3. Hold two seconds to drag a cabinet in 3D — instantly if Edit 3D is on.
  • 4. Middle-drag pans. Left-drag marquees. That one catches everybody.
  • 5. Alt+click again and again to peel down through stacked items.
  • 6. Click a gap number and type the gap you want — the selected item slides to make it exact.
  • 7. P once for options, P twice to shoot.
  • 8. Press O to open every door in the room — the fastest sanity check on door swings.
  • 9. Right-click cancels anything you have armed.
  • 10. Format Painter off repaints everything; on paints one cabinet.
  • 11. Clicking a catalog row only adds something when a cabinet is already selected — otherwise drag it.
  • 12. The Move step box takes fractions: 11/16 and 1 11/16 are both fine.
  • 13. Right-click a countertop edge for its profile and overhang; right-click the slab to drop in a sink or cooktop cut-out.
  • 14. Right-click a wall’s name button in the elevation to rename or delete that wall.
  • 15. Ctrl+P opens Export. Ctrl+Shift+R wipes the design.
? People also ask

Straight answers

Is the kitchen designer free, and do I need to install anything?+

It runs in your browser — nothing to download, on a laptop or a desktop. You can plan an entire kitchen in 2D and 3D without an account; signing in with Google is only needed to save, load, publish or export to Drive. Saving a PDF locally works signed out.

Where is the toolbar in the 3D view?+

Hidden until you reach for it. Push the cursor into the top edge of the 3D view and the toolbar drops down; the small ≑ TOOLS pill is the permanent hint. Also remember that turning Edit 3D on and off swaps the whole set of buttons between viewing tools and editing tools.

How do I pan the plan? Dragging just selects things.+

Three gestures do it. With a mouse, press the wheel down and drag. On a laptop trackpad, slide two fingers. On anything at all, hold the space bar and drag. Left-dragging on empty space draws a marquee selection instead — that is why plain dragging only ever selects — and the wheel, or a pinch, zooms. The elevation and the countertop drawing take the same three gestures, so nothing new to learn when you move between them.

I am on a MacBook with no mouse. How do I move around the plan?+

Two fingers on the trackpad move the plan, sideways as well as up and down, and a pinch zooms — the same gestures as a map. Space bar + drag also pans, which is the one to remember if the gesture ever feels fiddly. If a scroll behaves like the wrong device, set it by hand in ⚙ 2D Settings → Plan View → Pan & Zoom Input — Auto, Mouse or Trackpad.

I clicked a cabinet in the catalog and nothing happened.+

Clicking a catalog row quick-adds beside whatever is already selected — so with nothing selected it only shows a preview. Either select a cabinet first and then click, or drag the row onto the plan, which always places it.

How do I change the colour of just one cabinet?+

Turn on the πŸ–ŒοΈ Format Painter on the Door Colors page, then pick a colour — it becomes a brush, and you click the single cabinet in 3D to paint it. With the painter off, choosing a colour repaints the whole kitchen. Right-click to put the brush down.

How do I set an exact gap between two cabinets?+

Select the cabinet you want to move, then click the GAP number shown between them on the plan and type the width you want in inches. The item slides until the gap is exactly that — which beats nudging and hoping. The Move Object step box also takes fractions like 11/16.

Can I draw a kitchen that is not a rectangle?+

Yes. In Add Wall, use the turn buttons for 45Β° and 90Β° corners, type a value into the angle box for anything else, or hold Shift to draw at a free angle. Every wall stays editable afterwards — select it and retype its length, or right-click for its full property sheet.

How do I get a drawing I can hand to an installer?+

Use ⬇ Export and tick the sheets you want — the elevation (heights and cabinet faces, wall by wall), the top view, and the countertop drawing with its dimensions. Preview the page order, drag it into the order you want, and save the PDF. Raising the elevation detail level first gives you door profiles and hidden lines.

What does Edit 3D actually change?+

It turns the 3D room from something you look at into something you build in. Dimensions appear, the toolbar swaps to editing tools, cabinets drag immediately instead of after a two-second hold, right-click menus appear on objects, and the quick-add panel works in 3D. Turn it off when you just want to orbit and admire.

My Apple Pencil has stopped drawing — what do I check first?+

Scribble in Notes. If it draws there, the Pencil is fine and it is the app. If it skips too: check the charge, then Settings › Apple Pencil for pairing — then the two nobody checks, the screen protector and a loose tip.

Can a screen protector stop an Apple Pencil working?+

Yes — one of the most common causes. A thick, matte or privacy film sits between tip and glass: the line lags or lands offset, light strokes vanish, corners go dead. Peel one corner back and draw on the bare glass to prove it.

Why does my Apple Pencil only draw when I press hard?+

The tip has unscrewed itself a fraction — it screws on, and writing backs it off until it loses contact with the sensor. Unscrew it fully and refit it finger-tight, straight. If the point is flat, grey or wobbly, fit a new tip.

Does an Apple Pencil need calibrating?+

No — there is no calibration step, and any guide telling you to run one means a different stylus. Inaccuracy is physical: a thick film on the screen, a loose or worn tip, or a pairing that needs remaking.

Does the designer know real cabinet sizes?+

Yes — it is loaded with the actual catalogue: real widths in 3″ steps, the correct heights and depths, real corner cabinets and fillers. That is why it can tell you what is left over on a wall and where a filler has to go. The sizes reference lists the same numbers if you want to plan on paper first.

Enough reading

Open it and draw a wall — it takes a minute.

Drawing, designing, saving and the quote are free, and nothing you try is permanent.

Open the designer →