What we've been working on (April 2026)

Blockpad team

The past few months have been busy at Blockpad! With fast growth among engineering firms and universities around the world, we have been first and foremost ensuring a quality experience for all our customers. We have built many of the most requested features, with more exciting developments in the pipeline.

Between the most requested features and our long-term plans, our work has focused on a few key areas:

  • Compatibility with outside software
  • Advanced math features
  • Document features
  • Spreadsheet features
  • Group and company features

Whether you are all-in with Blockpad or whether you are learning about Blockpad for the first time, read on for a dive into the latest Blockpad updates, plus a peek at what's ahead. That includes our thoughts on AI.

We want the whole engineering industry to be able to use great calculation software. If you have any requests, feedback, or questions about using Blockpad at your firm, please reach out. Blockpad is made by engineers, for engineers like you. We care deeply about providing the best service in the industry. We look forward to hearing from you!

Compatibility with outside software

At Blockpad we have made the strategic decision to focus mostly on the internal product rather than perfect compatibility with other software. More and more, however, we are able now to improve interoperability.

We have big improvements with Mathcad import coming up in version 1.9. This will include importing more formatting, importing complex programs, and more. Keep an eye out for beta versions in May.

In the second half of 2026, we plan exciting features for working with Word and Excel files. These features have been a long time coming, as there are some complexities for us to take care of - Blockpad files are tricky to map to traditional documents and spreadsheets. But we will have a lot to offer here, so if using Blockpad with Word or Excel files would be helpful to you, stay tuned!

We have heard from users that working with Latex, HTML, and Markdown files would be useful too. These formats and more are on our radar.

Advanced math features

Previously we hadn't focused on symbolic math, but in version 1.9 this is changing. We are finishing features for symbolic equation solving, symbolic calculus, and other functions by wrapping around the SymPy library. Blockpad's upcoming SymPy interface may be the most intuitive and powerful tool for symbolic math of any software tool.

The symbolic equation solving feature is particularly transformative. With this new feature, Blockpad will solve solver sections symbolically as functions if you give more variables than equations. Blockpad will also be able to return all solutions, including complex number solutions.

By building on the widely used SymPy library, we are able to offer highly trusted existing symbolic math capabilities through our user friendly environment.

Document features

In version 1.8, we rolled out some of the most requested features for documents. This includes further customization of page numbers, including continuing page numbers across frame tabs.

We also rolled out exporting PDF features, including clickable links in PDFs, navigation outlines, and PDF/UA accessibility tags.

With the past few releases, we have steadily improved the copy and paste experience. This is especially the case when copying and pasting within documents and between Blockpad and other programs. One neat thing new in version 1.8, there is an option to copy and paste equations into Word as true Word equations.

In the second half of 2026, further improving document features will be a focus. This includes, of course, further compatibility with other document formats. We also plan more powerful formatting, so that Blockpad will be the obvious tool for any word processing with heavy math content.

Spreadsheet features

In version 1.8, we rolled out some of the most requested spreadsheet features, including the ability to cut and paste cells with formulas appropriately adjusted. This release also made it easier to insert charts floating over a spreadsheet, and it introduced an easier way of wrapping text in cells.

File interoperability will be another key area in the near future with spreadsheets. Stay tuned for features to work in more ways with Excel files.

Group and company features

Helping teams get the most out of Blockpad is a top priority. One exciting area is the Blockpad library. We continue to work on refining the library experience, so teams can seamlessly share blocks, data, functions, and more.

In recent releases we have made big improvements in tools for IT administrators, including for volume installs, data options, and license management. If there is a way we can better meet your company's needs, please reach out.

Many more features

We have many other features in the works outside these categories. Some other areas of development include improved charts, scripts and macros, improved find and replace, and Python integration.

No feature is too big or too small to implement. We are working fast towards our long term vision, and we are excited to share upcoming updates.

Again, if there are things you would like to see, please get in touch. Your feedback is very helpful to us.

What about AI?

We think AI will become a big part of engineering work, but human engineers will remain essential. Our AI plans revolve around truly empowering those human engineers and putting them first.

We are exploring several concepts, including:

  • An AI calculation checker tool
  • A built-in chatbot to discuss files and make edits
  • AI blocks and other calculation generation
  • Interfaces with outside AI agents
  • Intelligent importing that reorganizes existing spreadsheets around units, clearly named variables, and well documented equations
  • Features adjacent to LLMs, such as improving the Python integration to leverage AI-generated scripts

We don't have any schedule to share yet for rolling out AI features, but our customers can count on a few principles with AI in Blockpad:

  • It will always be optional.
  • We will always respect your data privacy and allow you to keep your files and data entirely local.
  • It will be designed to make calculations higher quality, not less.
  • We will not resort to grandiosity and buzzwords. We will stick to keeping serious engineers happy, rather than be one of those companies that shouts AI everywhere to chase funding.

Many AI integrations are already possible. These include using our Python integration to use any Python library in the world, running locally on your machine. These also include prompting LLMs to review or generate Blockpad files.

Thank you to our customers

A special thank you to every engineer, student, and other supporter who has used Blockpad and helped spread the word. Your support is the reason we are able to deliver calculation software that puts engineers first.

Read more about changes in version 1.8, released in April:

Also, please follow us on social media to keep up with upcoming announcements.

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