This paper presents a four degrees of freedom (DOF) hybrid machine tool based on a novel planar 3-DOFs parallel manipulator and a long movement of the worktable. Closed-form solutions are developed for both the inverse and direct kinematics about the parallel manipulator. Three kinds of singularities are presented. Based on the formulation of condition number and the definition of the position workspace and orientation workspace, the effects of the design parameters on the dexterity and workspace were discussed. The change ratios of condition number were defined and used as the evaluated indicator to analyze the effects of the design parameters on the performances. A dimensional design approach that could satisfy the requirement of motion platform realizing orientation capability, dexterity and workspace was proposed. A novel 4-DOFs hybrid machine tool was manufactured. The methodology presented in this paper can be of great help in the design, trajectory planning, control and application of such devices.