Sheet sets

What you will learn

How to collect sheets (layouts) from several drawing files into a sheet set, number and title them, have their title blocks filled in for you, publish the whole set as one PDF, and pack everything into one zip to send.

A sheet set lives in a small file of its own, <name>.ccsheets, in the folder that holds the drawings. The set file lists the sheets with paths from that folder, so you can move or copy the whole folder.

Start a set

1. Find the Sheet set section in the left panel, and open its Set menu. Typing SHEETSET (or SSM) also brings you there.
2. Choose New set…. Give the set a name, and if you like the project name and number.
3. Pick the folder that holds the drawings. The set file is saved there.

To open a set later, choose Open set… and pick the same folder. If the folder holds more than one set, CadCraft asks which.

Add sheets

1. Choose Add sheets from a drawing… and pick one of the drawings in the folder.
2. CadCraft reads that drawing in the background (it does not open on screen) and lists its sheets. Tick the ones you want and click OK.
3. Select a sheet and press F2F2 (or Rename and renumber…) to give it a number and a title, such as A-101 and Floor plan.

New sheet from template… makes a new drawing from another drawing's sheet (its title block and viewports), named after the new sheet, and adds it. The set remembers the drawing you used as its template.

Arrange the set

• Subsets group sheets, such as Architectural › Plans: select where it goes and choose New subset….
• Order: drag a sheet to another place in the list, or onto a subset to move it there. With the keyboard, select it and press ⌥↑Alt+↑ or ⌥↓Alt+↓.
• Open a sheet: double-click it (or press ReturnEnter). Its drawing opens in its own tab, on that sheet.
• Remove: select it and press fn DeleteDelete. The drawing itself is not changed.
• Undo: Undo set change and Redo set change step through what you changed in the set.
• Renumber: Renumber sheets… numbers every sheet, or one subset's, in the order of the list: a prefix, a start and a step (A- and 101 give A-101, A-102 …).

Every change is saved in the set file at once.

Fill title blocks from the set

A title block gets its text from the set when its attributes are tagged with a field's name:

Set fields… holds the project name and number and your own fields, one per line as NAME = value.

Update drawings writes the numbers, titles and fields into the title blocks of every drawing in the set, and renames each sheet's layout tab as the set says (by default number and title, such as A-101 Floor plan; Set fields… › Layout tab names changes that). Each drawing is saved in place, in its own format and version. After you renumber or rename sheets, run it again and the tabs and title blocks follow.

A sheet list on the cover sheet

Select the cover sheet in the list and choose Put the sheet list on this sheet. A table of every sheet (number and title, under its subset) goes in the sheet's upper left corner. Update drawings and Publish to PDF keep it up to date. It is one block, CC_SHEETLIST: move it like any block reference.

Publish the set

Publish to PDF makes one PDF with a page per sheet, in the set's order, at each sheet's own paper size, with a bookmark per sheet ("A-101 — Floor plan"). With a subset selected, CadCraft asks whether to publish just that subset. The title blocks in the PDF are filled from the set even before you update the drawings; the drawings themselves are not changed by publishing. The PDF downloads.

Archive the set

Archive as a zip packs the set file, every drawing it uses and what those drawings link to (linked drawings, and theirs in turn, and pictures), keeping their folders, plus a Transmittal.txt that lists every file. A link that is not in the set's folder is listed there as missing. Links are found by their path from the drawing, then by their file name anywhere in the folder.

The set file

The .ccsheets file is JSON you can read in any text editor:

{
  "format": "cadcraft-sheetset", "version": 1,
  "name": "Riverside Clinic",
  "properties": { "PROJECTNAME": "Riverside Clinic", "PROJECTNUMBER": "2026-014" },
  "layoutNames": "number-title",
  "sheets": [],
  "subsets": [ { "id": "plans", "name": "Plans", "sheets": [
    { "id": "p1", "file": "plans/Level 1.dwg", "layout": "A-101 Level 1 floor plan", "number": "A-101", "title": "Level 1 floor plan" }
  ] } ]
}

Paths are relative to the set's folder, with / between folders. CadCraft checks the file when it opens it: an absolute path, a sheet without a file or layout, or text that is not plain is left out, and the history says so.

Troubleshooting