Planner for Mac

When completing a wood or other project from stock materials, predetermining the layout for cuts helps save costs. Planner for Mac may appeal to a very specialized group of people who need computer assistance in planning a project's cuts, but the price and limited functions may make it a less desirable option.

Available as a free trial version limited to 10 uses, the full program requires a $10 payment. Planner for Mac installs quickly and setup is smooth outside of a dialog box explaining the trial limitations. The program is not supported and lacks instructions. The specialized program means that only a select few would even understand what it is supposed to do, let alone how to operate it. When undertaking woodworking-type projects, you can enter in the measurements of each piece for the project and place it on a mock "board" on the desktop. This supposedly allows you to better plan where to make the actual cuts to ensure the smallest amount of unused wood or other material remains. After experimenting to figure out the operation, we found that the program does not work well. It is easy to enter the dimensions of both the base materials and the pieces to be cut. However, when we were trying to decipher the mockup, it was very difficult to work with the diagram showing where the cuts will be made.

Planner for Mac may only appeal to a few specialized users and is not the type of software an average Mac user will find interesting.

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of Planner for Mac 1.2.0.