Hi all,

Have a small (very small) furniture business and I've recently done away with my computer and have been utilizing the Apple Ipad and pencil exclusively.  I've found my work flow is better and more easily accessible in one mobile spot.  I've been learning Shapr3D to replace Sketchup which I used on my laptop.  I can also draw furniture sketches on the go with different drawing apps.  I haven't settled on one yet.  Lastly, I find the note taking apps very appealing as I can use the pencil to jot something down or type.

One thing I haven't found yet is a good cut list app.  I used an extension with sketchup that worked alright.  I've tried a couple different apps but none seem to let me print out the cut list to take with me.  I guess in a paperless world, I need to practice using the Ipad directly, instead of printing out a cut list.


I'd be interested to know if anyone has found a good cut list app that works exclusively on tablets without the need to sync to a computer.

Also, has anyone else ditched their laptop for a tablet?  I'd like to hear how your experience has been so far.

Also, has anyone else ditched their laptop for a tablet?  I'd like to hear how your experience has been so far.

I did the opposite.  After trying to like an iPad (before pen was available) I found file management and transfer was just not user friendly for my work flow.

I switched to the Microsoft Surface Pro and have never looked back. A tablet when I need it, but a real PC at the same time. Sketchup and now Fusion 360 all work great and I can synch files to my NAS from any where.  I also like being able to plug it into a full size monitor when designing.  Also, the micro SD card slot allows all the additional storage that I could want.

This is far from an ideal workflow, but I've used workshop-buddy.com to estimate the sheet goods I need and layout the cuts for minimum waste or maximum cutting efficiency.  The tool itself could use some improvements and there might be other websites that do a better job.  The clunky part is I screen shot the cutting patterns for each sheet and insert them into a note which has all the other relevant information.  I only bring my phone with me to the store and reference the pics and my notes and have them perform one crosscut and one rip to bring the sections down to a size that will fit in my car (no truck). 

The other clunky part is I still resort to sketching on paper before anything goes digital.  Part of that is my comfort level with analog, part of that is my unfamiliarity with digital tools (which will change this year).  I'm curious about how others manage a completely digital workflow, great topic!

FYI I did a search on workshop-buddy.com to check it out. Accessing the site set off my anti-virus software indicating that the BV:Miner-T [Trj] Trojan was attempting to install itself on my system.

I recently also went the Surface Pro route.... long time Apple and iPad user but the SP with a pen and/or a keyboard for me is the better machine by far since it’s way more versatile. I can not really imagine that you can run a business without extensive use of a keyboard (and offcourse as mentioned a decent file system). The iPad keyboard is little more than an afterthought in my opinion.

But for sketching even the pro’s are divided, both work fine. And on both machines the newer drawing apps do have a learning curve but that’s to be expected.

And a pretty nice trick I picked up from reading and watching Youtube about using a pen.... you can also use a (plastic) ruler on the screen.

I've been considering this.

For a long while now, I've been a proponent of pen computing (started w/ a Koala Pad on a Commodore 64, had an NCR-3125 running PenPoint, I've used every version of Windows since Windows for Pen Computing so as to have a system w/ a stylus), but the recent Fall Creators Update having dumbed the stylus down to an 11th finger making text selection difficult for me, and very inefficient (I've had to roll back twice now) has me seriously considering an iPad (which would be my first Apple purchase since buying OPENSTEP 4.2 from them right after they bought NeXT).

Can't not have a full-fledged computer though, so the iPad would be used for mobility and pen capabilities --- I'd get Mac Mini and access it using the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil using Astropad Duet.

I'm almost to the point of just doing it, and probably would if I were confident of finding web sites and apps which could handle all my needs.