Printing to Scale

[ReMark]

CAD software? Yes, perhaps. DraftSight, progeCAD, intelliCAD and ZwCAD to name four. DraftSight, strictly 2D, is free.

Draftsight link:

http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsig...ight-overview/

[Tiger]

If you just want to look at the files, take measurements and then print them - I think Autodesks Viewer would be enough, and its free so try it out.

[chris_stuart_leach]

thank you.
I shall certainly give them a look.
Although in future i dont think asking people to send me the drawings in CAD will be a problem.
Currently I only have the drawings in pdf.
Is there a way of converting pdf to CAD, ensuring all measurements and scalings are correct as drawn?

[ReMark]

I wouldn't bother with conversion programs. They're more trouble than they are worth and the results are mediocre at best.

Anyways, since you do not have a CAD program either the point is moot.

[Wilbri]

May I suggest that you download progeCAD.
This is AutoCAD "DRG" Compatible software that is able to convert PDF files to DXF files. (price approximately $250.00)
As a retired design draughtsman residing in South Africa where price of AutoCAD ($6000.00) is beyond the pocket of most small businesses, this is definately an answer, but be assured though, that although you are able to open and use up to Acad 2010, that is where it ends in terms of the "bells and whistles" associated with AutoCAD products.
You "get what you pay for" yes but 17 times the price in my country is definately a rip off!

Having stated what I have I remain an ardent AutoCAD user. Obviously using employer's or clients software.

If you do decide to try progeCAD (30 day free trial download), please advise me if you are successful in converting the PDF document into a scale DWG file as I found it relatively easy?

[Commdec]

We use QuickScale to print our pdf's to scale. Not had any problems yet. We print on A4, A3 and A1.

[BIGAL]

If you drag and drop your pdf into acad then plot from autocad you can remove scaling problems when plotting, rescale pdf image its not as good quality as a Cad dwg obviously.

[cadvision]

you should look at RxView/RxHighlight from Rasterex (www.rasterex.com) They are mulit format viewing programs. you can calibrate a known distance and then measure distances and area. Doesn't matter if cad, PDF, Scanned pencial drawing. If you know a dimension you can then measure any other (assuming the drawing is drawn to scale). More accurate than a scale rule on paper copy & it keeps running totals of the measurement you can then paste into spreedsheet or other document

[cadvision]

If your wanting a CAD package for this type of work, look into nanoCAD (www.nanocad.com) It is free and you can load DWG files and then plot or measure.