Hey there, stranger! I hear that you’ve been using MatterControl lately. I also hear that you're ready to start creating and customizing your own presets! Don't know where to start? Not to worry my fine friend, guides like this exist for a reason. So settle down into your favorite pair of pants, it's time to learn about presets.


We’ll just start with finding the presets. Head over to Settings & Controls -> Settings and then click on one of the editing icons that look like pencils. It doesn't matter which one; they both work the same way, only the Quality set is used for differentiating various levels of quality and the Materials set is used for differentiating various materials.

See those little guys? Well, go ahead and click one. You should see some list items, similar to the printer profiles. To the right of the profile names, you should see an “edit” button. Click it.

We'll being doing a lot of editing here.

This is where you edit presets. These are the settings that will change when you switch presets. Every other setting will remain the same when switching between presets, unless you choose to add more settings to each one.
In other words, presets are a collection of settings that you want to be able to alter quickly, without having to change all of the settings you already want.

Only four settings in this preset? Maybe it's not so complicated after all!

Let’s say we want to add a preset. The first thing that you want to do is take a look at those drop down menus at the top. From left to right, select the setting that you would like to add to your preset.  

When I print in ABS, I want my prints to be SLOW!

After you select the last option, it will be added to the list of settings that change when you select that specific preset.

 

There we go. Now it is set in code.

Should you choose to switch to a different preset, whatever settings you had in the previous preset will go back to the defaults, and whatever settings are included in the new preset will now take effect.

 

In the first photo, the ABS preset is selected, and the orange settings are changed. In the second photo, it is the PLA preset. The remaining settings stay unchanged.

Thanks for reading "How to use the presets in MatterControl!" If you've read this entire things, and you just can't seem to get the hang of it, feel free to get in contact with us, and we'll help you sort it all out.

Cheers!

-The MatterHackers Crew

About MatterControl

MatterControl is an all-in-one desktop 3D printing software application created by MatterHackers, Inc.   MatterControl features an intuitive approach to 3D printing, allowing users to queue multiple parts for printing without pre-slicing, preview and manipulate designs, as well as integrating a library that enables users to organize and search their design files.  MatterControl is currently available for Windows/PC (XP and above), Mac OS X (10.7+) and Linux.  Check out www.mattercontrol.com for more details.