Onshape College Lesson 1: Introduction to

Onshape - “Getting Started”

● Creating an Onshape account

● Navigating a 3D environment
● Explaining sketch-based modeling
● Introducing the 4 foundational features (extrude, revolve, sweep,
Concepts and loft)
● Transitioning from 2D to 3D
● Introducing basic sketching
● Appendix A: keyboard shortcuts, mouse and touchpad gestures,
view tools
● Appendix B: navigating documents, account settings,
subscription plans

● Cylinder shell - used for intro to interface, visualization/viewing

● Models that already have sketches - students must create
Models features
● Existing public models - search and copy to workspace
Welcome to the Onshape College Curriculum
Welcome! This curriculum is designed to introduce you to Computer-Aided Design (CAD) using
the Onshape Full-Cloud CAD platform. This content has been created for use in a 12-lesson
course taught by an instructor at any college, university, or technical school with a focus on design
and engineering. This curriculum introduces you to not just CAD, but also to tried and true
methods of designing products for manufacturing, as well as design techniques that are unique
to Onshape and full-cloud CAD.
Each lesson is divided into a Lesson Plan, Homework, and an Assessment. Instructors should
feel free to modify this curriculum as they see fit to best deliver a valuable learning experience to
their students.
The core curriculum is a step-by-step walkthrough of most features in Onshape, with an equal
focus on the “How” and the “Why.” After this course, you should be able to easily apply the skills
learned to any other parametric CAD program and engineering setting. In addition to the
instructions, there are also “Pro Tips” which are designed to accompany some of the more
advanced topics. Pro Tips have been written from the perspective of a professional with the intent
to quicken or clarify the design process.

Let’s begin!

Getting Started
Before we start designing in Onshape, we need to create an account and sign in.

Creating an Account
Unlike most CAD software, you don’t have to download or install anything to use Onshape. But,
you do have to create an account. Once you have an account, you can log into Onshape from
any computer or mobile device as long as you have an internet connection. Follow the steps
below to create your account:

1. Open a browser window, and go to www.onshape.com/signup for the Free Plan,

or go to www.onshape.com/edu/signup to sign up for the free Education Plan (recommended
for all teachers and students).
2. Alternatively, go to www.onshape.com and click the [Create Account] button at the
top of the page.
3. Answer a few questions and click [Create Free Account].
4. Check your email for a confirmation email and follow the link within.
5. You’re in!
Signing In
1. Navigate to http://cad.onshape.com.
2. Enter the email address you used during the sign-up process.
3. Enter your Onshape password.
4. Click [Sign in].

And that’s it! You’re now on the Documents page.

The Documents Page

● The Documents page is the first page displayed after signing in. While on any other page,
click the Onshape logo in the top left to return here.
● Since this is your first time logging in, the “Tutorials & Samples” filter is active. Feel free to
browse these tutorials if you like.

Additional details about the Documents page (including document filters, sharing documents, and
changing units) are under “More About Your Onshape Account” in Appendix B.

One cool thing to take note of: notice the Share button in the top right corner. Can you guess
what this is for? Onshape actually lets you share and simultaneously collaborate on documents
just like you might over an essay in Google Docs. More on this in Lesson 6.

Learning to Think in 3D
Let’s get right into it and look at an existing 3D model in Onshape.
 1. From the Document screen, click on “Public” from the left panel, and search for a model
called “College - Casting Fixture Demo”. If you can’t find it, click here.
2. Click on the name to open it.
3. The Document will open, and you will see the Part Studio:

4. There are 5 main areas of interest:

1) The Feature List: Features are used to create CAD geometry and
this list shows the order in which they were created. (Scroll down in
the left panel to see them all.)

2) The Part List: This is where parts are listed, in chronological order,
as they are created.

3) Tabs: Documents can have multiple tabs such as Part Studios,

Assemblies, Drawings, and more. More on this later.

4) The Graphics Area: Where we view, create, and modify geometry.

5) The View Cube: This helps us rotate and view our model.

Let’s get a better understanding of the Graphics Area and the View Cube through the following
exercise.
Hover over the View Cube. Notice that parts of the cube (the edge, corner, or face of the cube)
become highlighted. Click on the “Front” face. The model should rotate and show us its front view,
like in the picture below.
Now play around by clicking on the edges and corners of the View Cube. Click on the corner in
between the “Front”, “Top”, and “Right” faces, and we will be brought back to the default
orientation.

Besides rotating, you can also view your model by zooming in and out, and panning (which
translates the model side-to-side without rotating).

Most people like to use their mouse when using CAD. If you have a mouse:

1. Try rotating the model by holding down the right mouse button and dragging. Notice
that the orientation of the View Cube always matches the orientation of the model, as
shown below:

2. Now trying zooming in and out by scrolling down and up, respectively. Keep an eye
on where the mouse cursor is, as the zoom is always centered on that cursor. If the cursor
is over your model, you zoom into the model. If the cursor is over to the side, then you’ll
zoom in to blank space. You can also flip the direction of your scroll in your account
preferences.
3. And now, try panning by doing the same gesture as rotating, but while holding down the

CTRL key (even on a Mac).

If you don’t have a mouse, use the touchpad to complete these steps. Refer to “Mouse and
Touchpad Gestures” under Appendix A for the full list of touchpad controls.

Pro Tip: When zooming in and out and rotating, it’s quite easy to get “buried” or “lost” in the model,
especially with large parts. Sometimes, you can even zoom in too far and the model is completely
off the screen! To quickly zoom to fit and center the entire model to the screen, select the “f” key
on the keyboard. In fact, many professional CAD Designers naturally operate with one hand on
the mouse, and the other on the keyboard at all times.

Sketch-Based Modeling and the Four

Foundational Features
We’ve learned how to view models, but how do you make them? This 3D object was actually
made by many 2D sketches and 3D features. The concept of making a 3D model out of a
combination of 2D sketches and 3D features is called Sketch-Based Modeling and is common
to many professional CAD systems.

To understand the concept of sketch-based modeling a little better, let’s open a document first.
Go to “College - Sketch-Based Modeling” and click on “Make a private copy” located on the top.
Choose [Private] and click [OK] on the dialog box. You should land on this page:

This time, the interface looks a little bit different, because this is a part that we own rather than a
public part that we can only view). We now have a feature toolbar at the top of our screen. We’ll
focus on just a few features on the top left:
The four rightmost icons in the blue box represent Extrude, Revolve, Sweep, and Loft. These
are known as the 4 foundational features - important 3D features that modify a 2D sketch. These
tools are extremely useful in sketch-based modeling. In fact, you can make almost any geometry
just using these four features. Notice that we’ve also written these 4 keywords in the tabs on the
bottom of the screen:

Let’s learn what these features are by following these steps:

Extrude
1. Make sure you’re in “Part Studio 1 - Extrude”. You should see a rectangle located in the
middle. This rectangle is your 2D sketch for this example.

2. Now we’re going to Extrude this rectangle. This means we’re going to take the shape in
the sketch and pull it in a straight direction (i.e. a constant cross section is extruded in a
straight direction). If we pull a rectangle in a straight direction, we can imagine it forming
a box. Let’s see what happens.
3. Click on the Extrude tool in the feature toolbar.
Pro Tip: To keep the graphic screen clean, there are no text on the icons. However, if you hover
the mouse over the icon, descriptive text (including keyboard shortcuts) will quickly pop up, and
if you leave the mouse hovering over the icon for about 2 seconds, an even more helpful dialog
box will pop up. For example, if you hover over Extrude:

4. A dialog box should show up. Click anywhere in the gray area within the rectangle. The
dialog should end up looking like this:

5. Onshape will generate a preview of a box, just as we predicted. Click the green check

mark to accept.
6. You have successfully created a 3D model (the box) out of a 2D sketch (the rectangle) by
extruding.
Revolve
1. Now let’s Revolve a sketch. Click on the “Part Studio 2 - Revolve” tab along the bottom.
You’ll see a sketch like this:

2. Let’s think about how this 2D sketch can become a 3D model. Imagine you cut this shape
out on paper. Now imagine a stick taped to the vertical line, which we will call the axis of
revolution. What happens when you spin the stick really fast? What do you see? You
might see a 3D object – in this case, the start of a chess piece. This idea of spinning a 2D
sketch with a constant cross section around an axis of revolution is called revolving.

3. Click on the Revolve tool . A dialog will show up. Notice that “Faces and sketch regions
to revolve” is already highlighted blue.
4. Click the sketch. Then click on “Revolve axis.” It should highlight blue:

5. Then select the vertical line. The dialog box should end up looking like this:

6. Click the green check mark to accept.

7. You have successfully created a 3D model (the chess piece) from a 2D sketch by
revolving!
Sweep
1. Now let’s sweep a sketch. Click on “Part Studio 3 - Sweep”. You’ll see two sketches this
time, like this:

2. Let’s think about how we can use these 2D sketches as profiles for a 3D model. What will
happen when you drag this letter “I” along the “S” shaped curve? This idea of dragging a
2D sketch with a constant cross section along another 2D path is called sweeping.
3. Click on the Sweep tool . A dialog will show up.
4. For the first highlighted field (“Faces and sketch regions to sweep”), click on the “I” sketch.
5. Click on “Sweep path”. Then select the “S” curve. The dialog box should end up looking
like this:

Pro Tip: In this case, Sketch 2 was selected from the Feature List, not from the main Graphic
screen. Onshape accepts either, but in this case, selecting from the Graphic screen would require
two selections (one for each arc). When sweep paths are long and complicated, selecting the
entire sketch from the feature list can save a lot of time.

6. Click the green check mark to accept.

 7. You have successfully created a 3D model (the I-beam) from 2D sketches (the “I” and the
“S”) by sweeping!

Loft
1. Finally, let’s loft a sketch. Click on “Part Studio 4 - Loft”. You’ll see 2 sketches, one on top
of the other, like this:

2. Let’s think about how we can use these 2D sketches as profiles for a 3D model. Imagine
a 3D solid with a rectangular base and a circular top. This idea of smoothly connecting
multiple cross sections is called lofting. We can imagine a 3D solid like this:
As we can see on the left, the cross-section (with the cross hatch lines) of the geometry slowly
changes from a perfect square at the bottom to a perfect circle at the top.

3. Click on the Loft tool . A dialog will show up.

4. Under the “Profiles” field, click on both the rectangle and circle. The dialog box should end
up looking like this:

5. Click the green check mark to accept.

6. You have successfully created a 3D model from 2D sketches (rectangle and circle) by
lofting!

To summarize what we’ve learned so far:

● To create 3D geometry, we first start off with a 2D sketch, and then we perform an
operation on it. So the workflow for creating a single 3D feature often goes something like
this:
a. Pick a plane
b. Sketch a 2D profile on it
c. Create a 3D feature by referencing the previously-sketched profile

● This workflow is quite unique to CAD software, but is not unique to Onshape. Besides a
few exceptions, most CAD programs will have a workflow exactly like this. It will become
second nature quite soon, as it will be repeated dozens of times throughout the creation
 of a single part, and hundreds of times throughout a large assembly. For example, this is
the feature tree of one of the previous parts, note the familiar 2D sketch/3D feature pattern:

● In addition to the workflow, most CAD programs include the four foundational features.
Let’s recap these four features one more time:
a. Extrude: This geometry is created when a constant cross section is extruded
in a straight direction.
b. Revolve: This geometry is created when a constant cross-section is revolved
around an axis of revolution.
c. Sweep: This geometry is created when a constant cross-section is swept along
a path.
d. Loft: This geometry is created when multiple cross sections are smoothly
connected together.

Every object around you, including your pen, your USB cable, and the keys on your keyboard,
was designed by someone, and was most likely created by some combination of these 4
foundational features. Take a look around you and think about how the objects you see might
have been created using these features. These four features, when used together, can create
just about any geometry in the world!

Sketching: My Very First Part

So far you’ve used pre-made sketches to create 3D geometry using the concept of sketch-based
modeling on the four foundational features. Now, it’s time to make your own 3D model from
scratch!
To be extra prepared, you can review the help section and watch Onshape’s videos on how to
use Sketch Tools: Onshape Help: Sketch Tools

As we go along, it is likely that you will make a mistake – that’s okay! If you make any sketch
geometry that you’d like to get rid of, simply refer to the sub-section titled “Selecting and Deleting”
to select and delete any sketch entities.

Let’s get started.

Creating a New Document

1. Go back to the Documents page, by clicking the button in the top left
corner of the screen.
2. Click the button, and the following screen will pop up:

2. Enter a name for your document, such as “My Very First Part”.
3. Keep the document Private (more on this topic later), and click [OK].

Default Geometry
When we create a new Document, we might expect the Document to be empty, but we end up
in what’s called a Part Studio with four premade features. This group of features is called the
“Default geometry”, and it consists of the Origin and the three default planes: Top, Front, and
Right. The origin is the intersection of the 3 default planes, as shown here:
The default geometry can never be moved; however, the planes may be resized as needed.
Once a plane is selected, it highlights yellow and the corners (which are highlighted by blue
circles) may be dragged. This is just a visual change - no actual geometry is affected. These
types of geometries (planes and the origin) are types of a broader category called Reference
Geometry (which we’ll go into more depth on later).

Drawing and Extruding a Star

Let’s get back to making our first real part. We’ll begin by sketching a star.

1. Create a new sketch by clicking on the button.

Note: 3 things pop up on the screen:
1. A new Sketch is created in our Feature List, colored red because it is still being
defined, and highlighted blue.
2. The Sketch Dialog box opens up, and prompts us for a Sketch plane (also
highlighted in blue).
3. A message in the middle of the screen appears prompting us for a sketch plane.

2. Select the Front plane. This defines what 2D plane you will be sketching on.
3. Select the Line tool . Click on the origin, move the mouse, and click again for the end
of the line. A new line is started, connected to the first. This is called a sketch chain.

Pro Tip: You can select any tools in the toolbar by clicking on it. To deselect, click it again, or
use the context menu and select “Exit <tool name>”, or press the ESC key.

Pro Tip: Sometimes, it is easier to sketch when you are viewing the screen “straight on”, or in
2D. To quickly do this, hit the “n” key on the keyboard (this makes the sketching plane normal to
the screen). Here is how the sketch looks after hitting the “n” key:
 4. Keep repeating this until you have come back to the origin again. Onshape knows to stop
sketching the chain once you reach the endpoint of another line. Onshape also
conveniently shades our star in light blue, so we know it is a “closed contour”. Sketches
must have a closed contour in order to create 3D solid geometry.

Pro Tip: Always keep an eye out for the blue shade in a closed contour. It’s sometimes hard to
see if all the lines touch each other. For example, here is an “open contour” star next to our
properly sketched closed one. Without the blue shading, it would be nearly impossible to see the
small gap at the origin:
 5. Accept the sketch with the green check .
6. Now click on the Extrude tool .
7. Click on the star sketch.
8. You can click and drag the arrow to control the depth of the extrusion. You can also specify
an exact depth by typing in the dialog. Specifying an exact dimension can be very helpful
when creating precise parts, which will come in handy once you start making more
complex designs. Let’s extrude the star by 2 inches (don’t worry, we will be using metric
in this curriculum too!).

9. Let’s change the direction of extrusion. To do that, either click on the arrows in the
dialog box to change the direction of the extrusion or click on the arrow coming out of the
extruded preview model.

10. Click the green check box and you’re done!

Pro Tip: Onshape saves everything automatically, so note that there is no save button.
Selecting and Deleting
Everyone makes mistakes while sketching. This section teaches you how to select and delete
sketch entities.
1. To follow along, delete “Extrude 1” from the left panel in your star example. Right click
“Extrude 1” and select “Delete”.

2. Onshape selection works like a toggle. Click on one of the lines in the star to select, click
again to deselect. Notice that when you select an entity, it is highlighted.
3. You can also select multiple sketch entities. Click on one line, then click another. Two lines
in your star will be selected. Just keep clicking to select more sketch entities. The cursor
will display a count of selected entities, but it’ll only be accurate up to 5 entities.

4. If you want to select multiple sketch entities at once, you can drag a selection box around
or across entities.
Pro Tip: The box select is really smart! It does different things, depending on how you draw the
box. Drag left-to-right to select the entities that fall entirely within the box (indicated by solid
blue outline and blue-shaded selection box). Drag right-to-left to select the entities that the box
touches (indicated by dotted yellow outline and yellow-shaded selection box). Try it now!

5. You can clear all your selections by:

a. Clicking in empty space
b. Pressing the spacebar
c. Choosing “Clear selections” from the context menu

6. After selecting the sketch entities, you can delete them by pressing the delete key, or
right-clicking and selecting “Delete [number] sketch entities”.
Pro Tip: You can also undo commands by clicking the Undo command , or pressing CTRL-Z.

Sketching: Part 2
1. Start a new part studio by clicking on the “+” icon on the bottom left corner of the screen,
and selecting “Create Part Studio”:

2. Create a new sketch on the Front plane. This time, let’s create a rectangle, using the
“center point rectangle” tool from the rectangle pull-down:
 3. Draw a rectangle at the origin by clicking the origin first, something like this:

4. New, select the circle tool , and hover the mouse over the center of the top line. It
should highlight orange, and show a little icon (The mouse is “snapping” to the
midpoint of the line):

Pro Tip: This small icon symbolizes a constraint on the sketch entity. In the example above, we
drew the sketch such that the center of the circle is constrained to be at the midpoint of the
highlighted line. Constraints are an integral part of sketch-based modeling and we will spend a lot
of time learning about them in the next lesson.
5. Draw your circle here, and make it the same width as the rectangle. The mouse should
snap to the top corner of the rectangle:
 6. Next, draw another, smaller circle, concentric with the first:

Pro Tip: Instead of drawing a circle in Step 5, you could also use the “Center point arc”, located
next to the Circle tool in the toolbar.
Snap the center of the arc to the midpoint of the line, then click the two endpoints of the line.

Your sketch will look like this after adding the circle from Step 6:

7. Next, select the trim tool , and click on the segments of the rectangle (if you
drew a full outer circle in Step 5, click on the bottom half of the outer circle as well) to
remove them, until you end up with a sketch like this:
 8. Accept the sketch with the green check mark . This sketch is now complete and it’s
time to extrude.
9. Select the extrude tool, select the sketch profile, and then extrude it by 1.25”:

10. Notice how Onshape automatically creates a hole during the extrusion, because we
drew a circle inside the sketch.

Sketching: Part 3
1. Let’s create a bracket, which might be used within a larger machine. Start by creating a
new part studio. Create a new sketch on the front plane, and draw a rectangle with its
corner at the origin. This time, use the “corner rectangle” tool :

2. Next, draw another rectangle aligned to the top of the first one:
3. Use the trim tool to remove the overlapping lines (there are two of them):

4. We want the two horizontal edges on the top to be equal. Select those, and click the
Equal constraint . We’ll be learning about constraints in the next lesson, but all you
need to know now is that the Equal constraint makes the edges have the same length,
no matter what:

5. And extrude it out like this:

Pro Tip: You could have also extruded the sketch to create the exact same solid without
completing step 3. If you did not trim the sketch, you can select the “U” region of the sketch (not
the square) from the graphics region and extrude that only.

6. Next, let’s remove some material from it. Create a new sketch on the top surface of the
bracket by clicking on the surface. Notice you don’t have to sketch on the blue reference
planes, but can also sketch on any flat face of an existing part:

7. Sketch a new rectangle, that is aligned with the right side of the bracket, and accept the
sketch. Onshape should snap to the edges of the part:
 8. Now, let’s extrude this rectangle down. In the extrude dialog box, change the operation
to “remove”:

Summary
Let’s take a second to reflect what we learned in this lesson.
1. We learned about the sketch-based modeling and the 4 foundational features (extrude,
revolve, sweep, and loft).
2. We made our very first sketch.
3. We learned about selecting and deleting sketch entities.
4. We learned about snapping sketch entities to draw more accurate sketches.

Next lesson, we’ll be talking about dimensions and constraints, expanding more on the idea of
creating accurate sketches.
Appendix A:
Below is more information. Many of them won’t make sense yet, but it’s good to know how to get
them, as we will be using them later in the course.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Activate the keyboard shortcuts map right in the user interface by pressing the Question mark key
"?" on your keyboard when in a document. You can even pop it out of the window for continuous
display:
Mouse and Touchpad Gestures
Here is a summary on how to rotate, pan, and zoom.
Windows

Mouse 3D rotate: Right-mouse-button-click+drag

Zoom in and out: Scroll up and scroll down, respectively

or
2D pan: CTRL-right-mouse-button+drag (middle button
click+drag)

Touchpad
3D rotate: Right-mouse-button-click+drag

and Zoom in and out: Pinch out and pinch in, respectively

2D pan: CTRL-right-mouse-button+drag

Apple

Mouse 3D rotate: Right-mouse-button-click+drag

Zoom in and out: Scroll down and scroll up, respectively

or 2D pan: CTRL-right-mouse-button+drag (middle button

click+drag)
 Touchpad 3D Rotate: Hold with two fingers first, then release one
finger and drag

and Zoom in and out: Pinch out and pinch in, respectively

2D pan: CTRL + Hold with two fingers first, then release

one finger and drag

Note: For easier use of the Apple Touchpad, go to Apple > System Preferences >
Trackpad and make sure “Secondary Click” is checked. My personal preference is to
have secondary click in the bottom right corner. Then, I can click and hold in the
corner with my thumb and move the cursor with my middle finger to rotate the model.

View Tools
Besides moving the model within the screen, you can also change its appearance. Beneath the
View Cube is a small View Cube icon, and within that menu is a variety of different ways to view
the model. As the models get more complex, these visibility tools are helpful in allowing us to
inspect and review our geometry. Here is a quick overview:
Appendix B:
More About Your Onshape Account
Forgot Your Password?
Click the link next to “Forgot password?” on http://cad.onshape.com to receive an Onshape email
containing a link to reset your password. Onshape doesn't save or record your password.

Note: The following sections refer to the Documents page that appears right after signing into
your Onshape account at http://cad.onshape.com.

Views
The Documents page offers two types of views:

● List view - (Default) Presents documents by name in a list view and includes
the Detail pane to the right. Click the name to open the document (underlined upon hover), or
click anywhere else in the line to select.

● Grid view - Presents documents in a thumbnail view (thumbnails are of the

last Part Studio accessed). The Details pane is closed but you can use the icon to open it
again. Each thumbnail includes: Document name, owner, time last modified, size and Gear
menu. To open a document, click the name. To select a document, click anywhere in the
thumbnail.
Document Filters
On the left is a list of predefined filters to make finding documents easier. Click one to filter the
list of documents:
● Recently opened lists documents most recently opened by you or another user
with permissions to the document.
● My documents lists all documents you have created as well as all documents
shared explicitly with you.
o If you are part of any companies, those companies are listed in this area, by company
name, under “My documents”.
o Created by me lists those documents you have created yourself.
o Shared with me lists all documents shared with you explicitly by another Onshape user
or as part of a team or company.
● If the user is a member of a company plan or a team, those filters are inserted at
this point in the list.
● Public lists all documents made publicly available to all Onshape users by another
Onshape user.
● Tutorials & Samples lists all tutorials and samples provided by Onshape; these
documents are read-only; feel free to make a copy for yourself in order to obtain edit privileges,
which you can do by clicking the Gear icon and selecting “Copy workspace”.
● Trash lists all documents that you have deleted. Private documents in “Trash” still
count towards your private document limit. Note that any documents you delete from the
“Trash”, and all those present in “Trash” when you click [Empty Trash], are deleted forever.
● Click Details in the upper right hand corner to toggle the document details area
on and off. You can also view details about a specific document, access your user account,
and sign out of Onshape.

Share, Invite, and Import

You can also Share documents, Invite Friends to try Onshape, and import files:
 ● Share documents - Send an email link to your document to any person. If
they are an Onshape user, they can click the link and open the document in Onshape. If they
are not yet a user, they are sent an invitation to sign up for an account and automatic Free
plan, which will allow them to open your document. You can also make a document public;
that is, available to all Onshape users. Feel free to share documents with your friends and
instructors - it’ll be helpful when you need help or guidance when making your models.
● Invite friends - Send an email invitation to a friend explaining how to
sign up for an account and automatic Free plan.
● Import files - Import other CAD files, as well as any other type of file (such as
JPEGs, PDFs etc.), into Onshape.

Units
Click on your user name in the upper-right hand corner, and select “Manage Account”. On the
left-hand side of the screen, choose the option that says “Preferences”. This is where you can
change your default units. They start with inch-degree-pound, but there are many options
available. To change them, just pull down the menus, select, and hit [Save Units].

A Note about Onshape Subscriptions

Onshape doesn't require any commitment on your part: you can sign up, create documents, make
models, and export files, all for free. If you want to keep large numbers of documents private, it's
best to upgrade to a Professional subscription.

Free Subscription
The Free Subscription is recommended for individuals who wish to try Onshape. Some limitations
apply:
 ● You can create up to 10 private documents using up to 100MB private storage
space. If you exceed either limit you are prevented from creating more private documents
(until you free-up space), but you can continue to work on your existing private documents.
● You can create as many public documents as you wish, using up to 5GB total
storage space (including private and public documents).
● Documents shared with you count toward the 10-private document limit, but not
towards storage limits.

Professional Subscription
The Professional Subscription is recommended for users who want to create unlimited documents
with unlimited storage space available. A Professional subscription can be purchased for
$100/month and paid for at the billing interval of your choice (monthly or yearly). When signing up
for the Professional subscription, you have the choice to sign up and pay as an individual or as a
company.

Education Subscription
Chances are, if you are reading this, you have an Education Subscription. This subscription is the
same as the Professional, and is offered free of charge to students and teachers. The subscription
expires after one year, at which point you are automatically downgraded to the Onshape Free
subscription. However, you can upgrade to the Education subscription again, provided you still
meet the criteria.
For more information and to sign up, visit http://www.onshape.com/edu.
All documents created in an Education subscription are marked with forever, even when made
public, and even after the Education subscription has been downgraded. See Canceling
Education Subscription for information on canceling an Education subscription.

After Graduation…
After graduation, to upgrade to professional, you can downgrade to free, then upgrade to
Professional.