1. Free Floor Plan Software. Way more convenient to draw out rooms instead of walls. Sister site Roomstyler to get into the rooms themselves in 3D. Import Floor.
  2. To import a PDF file Open a new plan and select File> Import> Import PDF from the menu. Browse to where the file is located and click Open. In the Import PDF dialog choose which page of the PDF to import and click OK.
  3. How to Draw a Floor Plan with SmartDraw This is a simple step-by-step guideline to help you draw a basic floor plan using SmartDraw. Choose an area or building to design or document.
Repeat the same process with the red axis. You should now have two guidelines that intersect at the bottom right corner of your plan. This is a simple floor plan, so I am going to use the Rectangle tool to draw the exterior of the plan. If your plan isn’t a perfect rectangle, you can use the line tool to trace around the outside edges.
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Software name

Floorplanner does what it says on the tin, or the home page. The basic level is free but you are restricted to one floor plan, which I guess is fine if it's just you designing your home. There are a few feature restrictions but nothing too major - not being able to print to scale is the one that's a pain to do without.


They say 'Our mission is to let everyone in the world make better use of their space.' Very commendable. They could do with helping people make better use of their time when they're using Floorplanner. Some of the features are hard to find - but I've hunted them down for you. Read on..

Floorplanner

This Floorplanner review is part of the Free Floor Plan Software series.

Getting Started

Floorplanner is all online so there's nothing to download. There's the typical sign in first step (with your email address or through Google - no Facebook login) and then you can get going quickly.

You can view the floor plans you design on the Floorplanfinder app available for ipad and iphone. I don't think there's an app available for android just yet. I'll let you know if I hear that one becomes available.

Something a little different

Floorplanner is integrated with an iphone app called MagicPlan. You can use MagicPlan to draw the outline of a room and then upload it into Floorplanner to tweak the design and decorate. I've had a bit of a go with MagicPlan and I did not find it as easy as taking a picture. Still it's an interesting idea for getting a rough floor plan done quickly on the go.

Drawing a Floor Plan

Drawing floor plans with Floorplanner is really user friendly and intuitive.

Floor plan creator
Ground Floor Floor Plan

To make the walls there are two options. One is to draw out a room directly (a box) and the second is to draw single walls. I find it way more convenient to draw out rooms instead of walls. I tried to make a room using single walls, and the edges did not connect properly.

The single wall option is handy if you want to put in a partition wall or a half wall in a room. It's also necessary to create lots of short walls to make up a curved wall because there's no curved wall option.

Once you make a room, it is very easy to distort the shape of the room as well. You can change the placement of the corners and create an irregular shaped polygon room.

The dimensions are displayed when you drag the walls. There's no option to manually enter the dimensions, and getting an exact dimension becomes frustrating. If you're trying for 4m you'll get 4.01m or 3.99m. You can work in meters or feet and change between them at any time.

The area isn't automatically calculated, so you need to get out your calculators for that.

It is very simple to add windows, doors and stairs. It is also easy to change the direction of openings, as well to change the width, height and placement of the windows.

How do you clone a floor on Floorplanner?

I think cloning is a really important feature for floor plan software. It took a while to figure it out, but here are the steps to clone a floor on Floorplanner. It's not obvious. Have a read of these steps and the screenshot below.

  1. Top tip - Think about when you clone because everything is cloned - walls, doors, windows, furniture.
  2. Create the new floor (click on the + in the circle)
  3. Open the floor that you want to clone and hover over the arrow next to that floor label.
  4. You'll see a two little pages icon - it's in white in the screen shot below and there's the 'duplicate' help text. The location of my mouse disappeared when I took the screenshot.
  5. Choose the floor that you created in step 1 to clone the design to.
  6. Voila!
Cloning a floor in Floorplanner

Putting in the Furniture, Fixtures and Fittings

Adding the furniture is fun. Not only do the cartoonish plan drawings of the furniture look interesting, but it is also very easy to change the size, position and placement of the furniture. Duplicating the furniture is also very easy and helps to create the same kind of furniture or a row of potted plants.

The furniture is divided amongst the type of room and there's a search option to find the exact kind of furniture you're looking for.

There's a bunch of plants and accessories you can choose from as well.

First Floor Furnished

Taking a Look in 3D

I was kind of impressed by the way the shadows were created as well as the neatness of the walls and the windows.

The quality of the furniture in the 3d view was kind of a letdown. I noticed that 3D rendering was a feature in the paid versions so maybe this the 3D they offer in the free version is a watered down teaser.

Also, the navigation system to control the zooming and panning made it frustrating to get it into the right position.

Ground Floor 3D View - Back of House

I didn't spot a walk-through feature in the free version or the feature list of the paid versions.

I've mentioned in some of my other free floor plan software reviews that I like to be able to get inside the rooms as well. If you go to the projects page (Dashboard --> Projects) there's an option to 'Open in Roomstyler' which looks to be a sister site. I had a go at doing this and, sure enough, Roomstyler opens and you can decorate and produce 3D images of rooms. The weird thing is, only the floor plans come across and none of the furniture. I'll have to do a Roomstyler review at some stage.

Other Features

Saving

It is very easy to save your project. Floorplanner constantly reminds you that there are new changes made into the plan, and asks if you would like to save the project.

If this bugs you can can turn the automatic save off in the settings menu (the little spanner over in the right hand corner).

Sharing

Sharing on Floorplanner

You can share your design through Facebook, Twitter or through email. To share click on the icon with lines connecting the dots.

It's also worth mentioning publishing here. First of all, click on the 'i' button towards the top of the left hand panel, then click the publishing button at the bottom of the left hand panel. Then you can pick your publishing settings.

I looked around for where these publishing settings might be used. I don't know for sure but I think you send an invitation by going into the projects area (click on 'dashboard' then 'projects') and clicking on 'Actions' and selecting 'copy to user'.

Importing

Sketchup Pdf Floor Plan

Importing an image to trace on top of is really handy if you already have a copy of the floor plans, say from a real estate brochure that you want to use to get you started.

I couldn't find an option of importing a plan or image I thought maybe they're trying to make us use MagicPlan to import floor plans, but then I thought there's got to be a way and I spent ages looking..

How do you import an image into Floorplanner?

The import option is in the weirdest place. Follow these steps and check out the screenshot below.

  1. Open the construction menu - way over there on the right hand side of the screen under the 2D / 3D boxes.
  2. Click on 'drawing properties' the option furthest to the right.
  3. There you go - a browse button where you can select in a jpg, png or gif file and upload.
Importing a plan into Floorplanner

Formats / Exporting

As well as publishing that we went through above you can export a plan in an image format (a low resolution jpg), or a pdf format. Floorplanner sends the exported image to your email box.

Printing

This software allows you to print out images of your work. It has a set scale (a small scale at the bottom, to give an idea of the measurements). However, you can't set your own scale.

Help Available

Help was available through forums, a user manual, video tutorials and by directly contacting the help team.

Floorplanner Help

Summary

Let's finish with a bit of a recap

Feature

Yes / No

Notes

Completely Free

Yes

It's completely free for one plan, which for most of us amateurs working on our own designs is fine.

Online Application

Yes

Nothing to download.

Tablet Version

Yes

There's a floor plan viewer available on the ipad and iphone (nothing on android just yet). They are also integrated with MagicPlan.

Easy to Use

Yes

It is easy to use, although in parts this Floorplanner review has turned more into a 'how to' because some of the features are hard to find.

Enter Dimensions

No

I can't help thinking this must be easy to fix, or maybe it's in the paid version. Please make it available in the free option.

3D View

Yes

Nice renderings. Open your plan in sister site Roomstyler to get into the rooms themselves in 3D.

Import Floor Plan

Yes

It's a bit hard to find. See the instructions in the 'Import' section above.

Print

Yes

Print to Scale

No

Not really. There is a scale placed on the print outs but you'll need to upgrade to the paid version to be able to set your own scale.

Save in Common Format

Yes

You can export in jpg or pdf.

Share

Yes

Via email, Twitter or Facebook

Help Available

Yes

Manual, video tutorials, forum.

Here's some more reviews for you


Home By Me Review

Homestyler Review

Sweethome3D Review


Roomle Review

RoomSketcher Review

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FloorPlanner Review

Planner 5d

Sketchup

What Do You Think?

What do you think of Floorplanner? I'd love to hear about your experiences using this software.

New! Comments

Have your say about what you just read! Leave me a comment in the box below.


Free Floor Plan Software

Free floor plan software is great for playing with your design and exploring all the design possibilities. It's great for sharing and keeping a record of how your design thinking progresses.

Free Floor Plan Software Reviews

In no particular order..

The thumbnails link to the websites of the software and you can use the link to the review to read the reviews.


Home By Me Review

Homestyler Review

Sweethome3D Review


Roomle Review

RoomSketcher Review

FloorPlanner Review

Planner 5d

Sketchup


I’ve personally reviewed all these free floor plan software applications. Each review was based on the same demo house and the same structure has been used in all the reviews to give you an opportunity to draw a good comparison and find the software that suits your requirements, and for free!

Feature Summary

Home By MeAuto Desk Home stylerSweet Home 3DRoomleRoom sketcherFloor plannerPlanner 5DSketchup
Completely FreeYesYesYesYesNoYesYesYes
Online ApplicationNoYesYesYesYesYesYesNo
Tablet VersionYesYesNoYesYesYesYesYes
Easy to UseYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
Enter DimensionsYesNoYesYesNoNoYesYes
3D ViewYesYesYesYesNoYesYesYes
Import Floor PlanYesYesYesYesNoYesNoNo
PrintYesYesYesYesYesYesNoYes
Print to ScaleYesNoYesNoNoNoNoYes
Save in Common FormatYesYesNoYesNoYesNoNo
ShareYesYesNoNoYesYesYesNo
HelpYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes

What's in the Reviews?

The Demo House

All the reviews were carried out using a demo house which happens to be a simplified version of my house. You can read more about my house in remodelog.

Free Floor Plan Software Demo House - Ground Floor

Each review has the same headings to make it easy to compare one with the other.

Quick Intro

Each review starts with a very quick introduction covering:

Getting Started

Here we look at what it takes to get started. Is it a quick and easy sign up and start or is there a download process clogged with advertising?

Drawing the floor plan

How easy is it to draw the floor plan? Can you enter dimensions? Is the area automatically calculated? Can you draw a curved wall? Are the stairs, windows and doors easy to put in? Can the first floor be cloned from the ground floor?

Putting the furniture in

Is there a good selection of furniture? Can it be resized? Are there any items of furniture missing?

Taking a look in 3D

It can be a real thrill and a great visualization tool to be able to see your design in 3D. IT brings your design even more to life. How realistic is the 3D rendering? Are multiple camera angles possible and do any of these free floor plan software applications allow you to create a moving 3D walkthrough?

Other Features

Here we'll take a look at other features which can make a big difference. Can you import a floor plan? Can you print? How about printing to scale? Is it easy to share your floor plan with others using the application? What about saving your floor plan into some of the standard file types such as jpg or pdf or dwg?

How To Convert A Pdf Floor Plan To 3d

Help available

Learning any new software involves a bit of a learning curve and if there's good tutorials and good help resources that journey is made easier. So how does each floor plan design application measure up on helping you out?

Top Tips / Cool Features

If I've got any top tips or especially cool features to let you know about I'll put them in a box so that they'll stand out for you.

General advice on using free floor plan software

Free Floor Plan Drawing Software

Remember what the software is designed for

There are of course many home design software packages available that are not free for both amateur and professional use. From what I have seen using all the free floor plan software applications featured in this section I find it hard to imagine why you'd need to pay for software for amateur purposes.
And that moves me along nicely to my main bit of advice on using free floor plan software. Recognise its limitations. Software packages aimed at the amateur are not designed to produce drawings suitable for the planning office or for a builder to tender for your job.

Spend some time reading these reviews to make sure any particular feature you're interested in is included.

Use floor plan design software to explore your design

What they are excellent for is playing with your design and exploring design possibilities for yourself which I think is a really important part of the design process even if you're hiring an architect or home design professional.

Use online home design software for sharing

I enjoy playing with designs with pencil and tracing paper but it can be hard to keep these neat and it takes time to scan them if you want to share them online. I guess you could photo them with your phone but then there's problems with scale and getting it straight. So online applications are great for sharing.

Save often

While you're playing, exploring and sharing, don't forget to save, and often. It's useful to save all the different versions of the design so that you can come back later and take the best ideas from all the designs you've come up with.


How To Import Pdf Floor Plan And Draw Rooms

What Do You Think?

Elinor Pdf Floor Plan

New! Comments

Have your say about what you just read! Leave me a comment in the box below.