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Introduction​

This is the documentation wiki of FreeCAD. There are several ways to use this documentation: by exploring the hubs, by following the manual, or by using the Help menu entries from within FreeCAD. This 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 FreeCAD!

The hubs​

image 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.

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

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

Manual​

image The FreeCAD manual is another, more linear way to present the information contained in this wiki. It is designed to be read like a book, and will gently introduce you to many other pages from the hubs above. ebook versions are also available, as well as a couple of translations in pdf format.

Table of contents​

The following table lists all the articles of this wiki that form the backbone of the offline documentation shipped with the FreeCAD application. It is already available in several languages:

Get involved​

How to participate​

There is plenty to do inside the FreeCAD project, if you are interested in helping us. Of course, 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 and editing the wiki
  • helping newcomers
  • translating the application and documentation
  • helping with the packaging of the latest release of FreeCAD for your favourite operating system
  • helping other people around you to discover FreeCAD. The help FreeCAD page describes it all with more details. Starting from 2016, FreeCAD also participates in the Google Summer of Code. The Contributors hub page is another effort to gather the possible ways to help and contribute to the FreeCAD project.

Source code​

FreeCAD can be compiled on all platforms using CMake. The source code is LGPL-licensed and hosted on GitHub and mirrored on GitLab, SourceForge and CodeBerg. There are build instructions for Windows, Linux and MacOS. The source code documentation is hosted here, generated by Doxygen, and documented on the wiki.

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 progress 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.