PDF to DWG Converter

[Bill Tillman]

OK, this may have been covered somewhere in this forum already. But the need for a cheap (Free) PDF to DWG converter came up on a project for me recently and I was under the impression that the new AutoCAD Design Suite included such a utility. Well, it doesn't but this website has something that does...and it's Free.

 

http://anydwg.com/pdf-to-dwg.html

[Dadgad]

Thanks Bill, I don't often have to underlay PDFs, but whenever I do it really annoys me no end.

The downloadable free trial is good for 30 free uses, which could do me for a few years or more.

Looks interesting, I would much rather have to edit the drawing in .dwg format than to have

to trace it with snap points.

 

If it really does what it claims, even marginally well, then at $180 it would well be worth it

for those who work with PDFs on a regular basis.

[SLW210]

Did you even try Raster Design as I mentioned in your other thread?

 

This has been covered ad nauseam on CADTutor as well as other forums.

[Bill Tillman]

Did you even try Raster Design as I mentioned in your other thread?

 

This has been covered ad nauseam on CADTutor as well as other forums.

 

If I read the docs on the Raster Design correctly, it's only a tool which will work with a scanner...or perhaps I haven't read all the information on it yet. What I was in need of was a tool which will take an existing PDF file and convert it to DWG. My clients are constantly feeding me PDF files, and as we explored in another recent thread, wide format scanners cost a fortune.

 

In my search for this tool I also found this. The price for this tool was over $200 vs the $83 price tag on the one referenced above. The price difference would of course make one think one is superior over the other. But this higher priced tool will not let you save the file until you pay for it. Which basically means if it will only do the same thing the lower priced tool will do it's not worth it. When I examined the resulting DWG file from the lower priced tool, it did contain lots of line segments, unwanted polylines, etc...but when you look at the view of what it did convert, and remembering in the end it will print out on paper and look just fine....I can't see paying the higher price. I'm still doing research on this as well as the Raster Design tool within AutoCAD.

 

I inquired with our reseller on the Raster Design in AutoCAD Design Suite and as usual, the deer in the headlights response was all I got. I don't want to denigrate this guy, but honestly, for someone who is selling software at five grand a pop, he should be more informed. And their tech support people...anything beyond installation issues and you get the same deer in the headlights response.

 

The main thrust of this thread is that PDF underlays, while workable, slow AutoCAD panning and zooming to a crawl...and I do mean crawl. When you're in a fast paced environment as most of us are, this is just not practical.

[SLW210]

Are these PDFs Raster, Vector or both?

[SLW210]

IIRC, in Raster Design you, at one time, needed to convert the PDF to an image, then paste special and convert to vector, would have thought that would have been improved by now.

 

You might give DOTSOFT's PDF2DWG a try, you can request an evaluation and still only $95 to purchase.