Profile drafting using Fiberworks

Until recently, using a profile draft to design woven patterns was new to me. It took a bit of research to understand how to do it, in my case using Fiberworks weaving software, but once I had created my profile draft, how could I turn that into a liftplan I could use when weaving?
 
I couldn’t find the answer by Googling, so I emailed the very helpful Bob at Fiberworks, who pinged back a reply almost instantly. The answer was to be found in the Tools menu of Fiberworks – a function called ‘block substitution’. 
 
Once I had created a profile that I was happy with, I used block substitution to covert the profile to a liftplan using the structure I required, in this case double weave. There is a menu of different weave structures including twills, summer and winter, lace, damasks, tied weaves etc., but you can also add your own presets (which I’ve yet to try). There’s the option to create either a liftplan or a normal or skeleton tie-up. Once selected a preview opens up of the resulting liftplan, fully drafted which you can modify, change or save.  
 
Using this technique has been a revelation for me, and has saved me hours of drafting time because the scarf I was weaving had 2,020 picks and no repeating patterns. To make this manageable I divided the profile into 4 sections (A,B,C,D) and created 4 separate liftplans.

On the left: The profile draft for the whole scarf, in 4 sections.
Above: The liftplan for section A after conversion via block substitution.
​Below: detail of scarf after finishing