Spreadsheet Workbench¶

The Spreadsheet workbench embeds a live, formula-capable spreadsheet directly inside a FreeCAD document. Its primary purpose is not data entry — it is parametric model control: one spreadsheet can drive dozens of dimensions across multiple sketches, parts, and assemblies so that changing a single cell ripples through the entire design.

What the Spreadsheet workbench is for¶

The parametric master-model pattern¶

The most powerful use of the Spreadsheet workbench is the master-model pattern:

Create a spreadsheet with named cells (aliases) for every key dimension of your design: Length = 200, Width = 50, WallThickness = 3, BoltHoleDia = 6.35.
In every sketch and part feature, replace hard-coded numbers with spreadsheet references: instead of typing 200 in a Pad length, type Spreadsheet.Length.
To resize the whole design, edit one spreadsheet and recompute.

Without a spreadsheet, changing a design's proportions means hunting through dozens of constraints and feature parameters. With a spreadsheet, it is one cell change.

Secondary uses¶

Bills of materials — tabulate part counts, weights, costs.
Calculation scratch-pads — perform multi-step engineering calculations whose result feeds into a dimension.
Configuration variants — switch between design variants by changing a single "config" value that controls many downstream aliases via IF formulas.

Key concepts¶

Cells and cell addresses¶

Cells are addressed by column letter and row number: A1, B3, Z100. Columns go A–Z then AA–AZ, BA–BZ, …

Content types¶

A cell can contain:

Content	How to enter	Example
Number	Type directly	`42`
Text	Type directly (no `=`)	`Length`
Formula	Prefix with `=`	`=A1 * 2.5`
Unit quantity	Number + unit	`200 mm` or `=200 mm`

Formulas and the expression engine¶

The = prefix activates FreeCAD's expression engine. Formulas can reference other cells, use mathematical functions, and reference properties of any FreeCAD object in the document. See Formulas and Expressions for the full reference.

Aliases¶

Every cell can have an alias — a human-readable name (WallThickness) assigned in addition to its grid address (C4). Other tools reference the alias rather than the address: Spreadsheet.WallThickness is far more readable than Spreadsheet.C4 and does not break when rows are inserted.

See Aliases for details.

Bidirectional linking¶

Spreadsheets can both read model properties (display a part's computed volume in a cell) and write model properties (drive a Pad length from a cell). The dependency direction matters: FreeCAD enforces that there are no circular references.

Relationship to other workbenches¶

Workbench	Relationship
Sketcher	Sketch constraint values (length, radius, angle) can be driven by spreadsheet cell references, creating fully parametric sketches.
Part Design	Pad, Pocket, Hole depths, pattern counts, etc. can all be driven by spreadsheet aliases.
Part	Same as Part Design — any Part feature parameter can reference a spreadsheet cell.
FEM	Material properties and load magnitudes can be read from spreadsheet cells.

See the Tools index for a complete reference.