Standards

Please read carefully! Standards are the specifications for the way you build your cabinets.
Most errors found by our technical support people are due to incorrect standards.

Overview of Standards

As every cabinet maker is well aware, no two customers are exactly alike, so it is rare that two cabinet jobs are exactly alike. Some differences are relatively minor, like the size of the refrigerator that will be used, but some differences are major, like choosing frameless cabinets, (Euro), over face frame cabinets. Whatever those differences might be, your Cabinet Solutions software will need to be set up to reflect those differences. In Cabinet Solutions, we call the specifications used to produce your drawings and cut-lists Standards, and they are a very critical aspect of your program. It is your Standards that set you apart from other shops. Some examples of standards would be: what type of material will you be using for your face frame? What type of doors you will be using? What parts are dadoed together, and how deep are those dadoes? What type of material do you want to use for your drawer boxes and how will you construct them? This is the type of information you need to give Cabinet Solutions in Standards to get customized results in your drawings and cut-lists.

When you place a cabinet you will be able to create cabinets any size you want them to be. Cabinet Solutions creates that cabinet with a file of information created from the standards file. This file is stored with each cabinet and gives that cabinet the instructions it needs to be constructed the way you want it to be. If every cabinet within a job has the same standards file saved with it, they will all be built the same way, using the same materials, doors, dado depths, etc. However, there may be times when you want individual cabinets, or rooms of cabinets to differ from the rest of the job. To allow you this kind of flexibility, there are several ways you can set the standards for a cabinet, and as you will see, each way is useful for different applications.

Saving Standards files and Opening Standards files:

Because jobs are rarely alike, we at Cabinet Solutions have tried to provide a fast and easy way to set up each job with a different set of standards. To make that process even easier, Cabinet Solutions allows you to take a prepared set of standards and save them as a file. This gives you the ability to make a library of standards, any of which you can open and use on your new jobs or on any individual cabinet within that job. Some shops carry a low end cabinet, a medium grade cabinet, and a high end cabinet. And each time they prepare a set of drawings or a estimate, they might want to give the customer several design/price options. Cabinet Solutions lets you set up and save as many different sets of standards as you need.

Set-Up Options for Standards:

Another way in which your Cabinet Solutions program can be tailored to your shop is through the Standards Set-Up Options in the Standards section of the Menu Bar. Through this window you can select whether Cabinet Solutions will start up ready to layout cabinets with face frames, or without. You can also setup specific standards you want Cabinet Solutions to load when you choose Face Frame or Euro construction.

  • To Adjust the Standards for a New Job:
    1. When Cabinet Solutions starts, the first working screen that appears is called the "Job Information Window". From this window you can choose to either Start a New Job, or Open an Existing Job. If you choose to start a new job, a message box will appear asking you; "Do you want to enter in new standards for this new job?" (You can also start a new job or open an existing job through the File menu in the menu bar.)
    2. If you will be using the default standards that you can set up to be automatically loaded with each new job, click "No", and you can proceed to the Draw Walls screen. Click "Yes", if you want to adjust the standards in any way or if you want to select an entirely different set of standards.
    3. Once you have opened the Job Standards, click on the section of the standards that you would like to change.
    4. Enter the changes.
    5. When you've made all the changes you need to, click on the "Apply to Job" button at the bottom of the standards window. If you don't want to apply the changes you've made, click on the cancel button.
      • If you selected to Open an Existing Job file, and you want to change the standards you are using for that job, you can make those changes by clicking on the Adjust Job Standards icon after you've opened the job file you want to work on.
  • Using the Standards