Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published April 2016

The Big Dog in A2017

There are some pretty nice features in AutoCAD 2017, but I think my corporate Facilities customers will consider PDF Import to be a lifesaver, since they are frequently on the receiving end of PDF floorplans.

This will just be an introduction to the feature. The command's Help window covers all the details.

Insights

• PDFIMPORT can be used on DWGs with PDF Underlays already attached, or the default option is to select a File (PDF) to import.

• They have yet to perfect the recognition of text objects. I participated in a Beta review where text was recognized in some cases, and in others it wasn't. Stay tuned.

• Once the command is complete, you may want to consider running Delete Duplicate Objects. See Michael's Corner, March 2012.

How to Import a PDF File Into the Current Drawing

1. You can launch this feature from the Insert tabPDF Import, or just type it.

2. Press [Enter] for the File option, then navigate to, and select the PDF, then click Open.

   Note: If you have a location where you typically save PDF files, you can specify that path with the Options button at the bottom of the Import PDF dialog box.

   

3. The defaults work fine on the half dozen PDF files I tried this on. Here's the Help info on Layers:

   Use PDF layers
   Creates AutoCAD layers from the layers stored in the PDF file, and applies them to the imported objects. The layer names have a PDF prefix. If no layers are present in the PDF file, object layers are created instead.

   Create object layers
   Creates AutoCAD layers for each of the following general types of objects imported from the PDF file: PDF_Geometry, PDF_Solid Fills, PDF_Images, and PDF_Text.

   

   Current layer
   Imports all specified PDF objects to the current layer.

   Note: Keep the box checked for Solid fills. Presently, what appears to be TrueType fonts are, shall we say ‘randomly’ recognized as either fills or Hatch objects. In the image, notice that only certain strokes of the letters are on the PDF_Solid Fills layer.

How to Use PDFIMPORT on a PDF in the Drawing

1. You can launch this feature from the Insert tabPDF Import, or just type it.

2. Select the PDF object and you get the following prompt:

   Specify first corner of area to import or [Polygonal/All/Settings] <All>:

3. In this illustration, I created a window around a portion of the attached PDF map. After creating the window, you get the following:

   Keep, Detach or Unload PDF underlay? [Keep/Detach/Unload] <Unload>: U
Binding PDF file C:\CTG\CADTutor\ConAgra Campus Map.pdf, page 1 ...

4. Although it says, “Binding PDF file…” the Unload option technically unloads the referenced PDF and displays the condition in the External Reference Manager. Which means, yes(!), you can Reload that reference if need be.

   

Bottom Line

This is pretty fantastic. There are some shortcomings in recognizing text objects, but those are being worked on at this very moment. Unfortunately, Scan-to-PDF files are not able to be imported to AutoCAD geometry with this feature, no doubt due to their clarity… or lack thereof.

Other than that, I think it's pretty wonderful that we now get layers, as well as recognition of lines, circles, and arcs.

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