Downloading versions of Sketchup

Old Guy In Stanton

I'm watching the Sketchup 3D Toolbox YouTube series by Cameron Harris. I learn best when I follow along with a tutorial while doing the same thing in the actual program. Harris is using version 7 of sketchbook, which is (I gather) somewhat ancient. Questions:

(1) How much has the user interface changed between version 7 and Sketchup 2016?

(2) Can I still jump back and forth without getting totally confused?

(Perspective: I'm a retired Finance guy, and I remember that Excel TOTALLY changed the look, feel, and capabilities of the program between the Office 2003 version and the Windows 10 version, which really sucked when trying to jump between tutorials written for earlier versions and the actual program.)

Can I even GET Sketchup v.7 from the website, or elsewhere?
Would it be better to start with an earlier version of the program that has a solid tutorial, or jump right in to the latest version of the program?
I'm NOT looking at buying the Pro version. Until the novel sells, I'm basically limited to the free version. Are there any major differences between the Pro and Make versions, of later versions of Sketchup?

Thanks in advance.

sfto1

I would also suggest watching the tutorials on Sketchup.com to get familiar with the tools. While some things have changed, the basic icons for tools haven't change much. So, as long as you learn the tool functions, the older videos won't be an issue. I would also highly recommend that you read the D'oh Book on this site. It will give you innumerable tips that the rest of the users didn't know about for quite sometime. Good Luck and happy sketching.

Alan Fraser

The UI itself has hardly changed at all, visually. It has changed in the way you can actually organise the icons and palettes...it's much more customisable now. But if you arrange them in V2016 the way you see them in the tutorials for V7 you should be good to go.
Yes you can jump back and forth to your heart's content. The file format itself hasn't changed at all since V7.
There used to be a download site for every version back to about V3, but I think it was on the Google server, so it's probably gone now. I have a bookmark somewhere...just not on this laptop. If I find it and it still works, I'll post it. I would advise against downloading older versions from 3rd part websites. They'll possibly be virus infected.
Just use the current version of Make. As with Q.1 you'll still be able to make sense of the tutorials if you set up your workspace to match.
The major difference between the Pro and free versions is that you can't import/export to CAD files as easily. Also, the free version will not enable you to make Dynamic Components...just use them. There are also one or two extensions (like Solid Tools) that aren't available in the free version.

juju

@alan fraser said:

The major difference between the Pro and free versions is that you can't import/export to CAD files as easily. Also, the free version will not enable you to make Dynamic Components...just use them. There are also one or two extensions (like Solid Tools) that aren't available in the free version.

add to that the licence restrictions of Make version, no commercial use...