Creating & running jobs
A job in GRBL Server is one or more designs turned into G-code for a machine, using an engraving profile. Every job you create is kept on the Jobs page, ready to run again.
Every job follows the same path: open a design → place it in the job editor → create the job → preview and start it in the Job Station. This page walks through that path, then covers the Library, the Jobs page and Activity. For batches you repeat, see Workflows.
Start a new job
There are several ways in, and they all land in the same job editor:
- Home — drop a design on the page, or click Browse files. It opens in the job editor, ready to place and engrave. Nothing has to be added to the Library first.
- New job — the button at the top of the sidebar, on every page. It offers Open a file… (from this computer — it isn't saved to your Library), Blank canvas (start empty and add text, shapes or files) and From your library.
- The Library — select files and click New job, or double-click a file.
- Run a job again — Home lists your five most recent jobs; one click reopens a job in the Job Station.
The job editor
The job editor shows your machine's work area as a canvas with your designs on it. The settings panel on the left decides how they are engraved; the canvas decides where.
- Pick the machine. Its work area becomes the canvas.
- Choose how the job is engraved:
- Profile — pick a saved engraving profile: the power, speed and fill for a material. A default profile is ready to use.
- Custom — choose the start & end G-code and set every engraving setting yourself, for this job only. Useful for a test on scrap or a one-off.
- Place the designs. Drag to move; resize and rotate each element, with Lock ratio to keep proportions. Add file above the canvas — or dropping a file onto it — places another design next to what's already there. The tools on the right draw text, rectangles, lines and polygons, and align or distribute the selected elements. Show grid and Snap to grid help line things up.
- Optionally arrange or trim the job with the buttons under the canvas: Grid, Nesting or Crop/Clip.
- Click Create job. GRBL Server generates the G-code and opens the job in the Job Station.
The job editor remembers your layout across sessions, so closing the window doesn't lose a job you're still arranging.
Supported file formats
Every format goes through the same path — you don't pick "vector mode" or "raster mode" up front:
- SVG — paths, shapes and curves become vector moves; closed shapes can be filled. Text is laid out exactly as a browser draws it, including centred and multi-line text. A path's stroke colour can drive its power (see Contour power source).
- DXF — CAD drawings; lines, arcs and polylines become vector moves. The profile's Units setting makes a drawing made in inches or millimetres land at the right size.
- PNG, JPG — raster images, mapped pixel by pixel to laser power. Transparent areas are left unburned.
- SVGs that embed a raster image alongside vector outlines are processed in one job — the image is engraved where it sits, and the paths around it as vectors.
- G-code (
.nc,.gcode) — runs untouched, so you can run programs made elsewhere.
The Job Station
The Job Station is where a job is checked and started. Its header names the job after its designs, with its number, engraving profile, when it was made, the machine it runs on, and Start job.
- Preview — the toolpath drawn on the work area, with its size and position. Switch Grid, Engraving and Travel moves on or off. Very large files ask before generating a preview.
- Machine — change which machine the job runs on. The machine controls sit alongside, to jog, home or send commands.
- Macros — labelled buttons, such as Home or Frame, chosen by the job's engraving profile. Frame the job on your material before starting.
- Job — Edit G-code, Job data and Run history.
- Back — returns to wherever the job was opened from: the Jobs page, Activity, or a workflow's compiled G-code.
Start job asks first, naming the machine and showing a short safety checklist, and is unavailable until the job has a machine. After you confirm, a short countdown (5 seconds by default, set in Settings → Job Station) gives you a moment to step back; Start now skips it.
Editing the G-code
Edit G-code opens the job's program in the built-in editor — syntax-highlighted, with line numbers, find with match navigation, and go-to-line. Use it for a quick fix (tweak a feed rate, delete a stray move, add a comment) without regenerating the job. Very large files relax the highlighting to stay responsive, and files past the configured size limit ask before loading. If a job's G-code file has gone missing, the editor offers to rebuild it.
The Library
The Library holds files you engrave often, organised in folders. Each folder is a real folder on the host computer (in Documents\GRBL-SERVER\local_folder), so you can also manage it in File Explorer. You don't need the Library for one-off jobs — a file opened from Home or Open a file… is used for that job only.
- Folders are listed beside the files with how many each holds. New folder sits under the list; rename, delete and Open in File Explorer are in a folder's menu.
- Drop files from your computer anywhere on the page to add them to the open folder; drag files onto a folder in the list to move them there.
- Click files to select them, and one bar offers New job, Move to…, Download and Delete. Copies on a selected file sets how many of it go into the job — combined with a grid, that's how 24 keychains come from one SVG.
- Double-click a file to start a job with it. The search looks through every folder at once.
The Jobs page
Jobs lists every job you've created as a card: named after its designs, with its number, when it was made and how many times it has run, its machine and engraving profile, and how its last run went — Completed, Failed, Stopped, or Running with a link to Activity.
- Open takes a job to the Job Station.
- Search finds a job by a design's file name, its Library folder, a machine, a profile, a workflow or its number. Once workflows have made jobs, All / Made by you / From workflows keeps them apart. To leave workflow jobs off the page altogether, turn on Hide workflow jobs in Settings → Jobs page.
- Run on… starts the job on the machines you tick — straight away — and says under each machine whether it started or why not (switched off, busy with another job, already running this one).
- Change engraving profile… rebuilds the G-code with a different profile; Rebuild G-code remakes it with the profile's current settings; Download G-code saves it named after the job.
- Edit G-code, Run history, Job data and Delete are in the job's menu. Tick several jobs to delete them together.
Activity: pausing and stopping
Activity is the live view of what your machines are doing — the jobs in progress and any workflow runs. A job leaves the list on its own once it's no longer working.
- Pause — sends a feed hold. The controller stays connected and the laser is off. Resume picks up where it left off.
- Stop — terminates the job and clears the queue on that machine. Use it when something has gone visibly wrong.