How do you convert PDF to DWG??

[Richard McCarthy]

Hi everyone, just a question... does anyone know how to convert PDF to DWG??

[3dp]

to my knowledge you don't

one of the project i work on has a intranet withich uploads plotplot files and pdfs

i go with plot files and use a viewer

then again you may be able to open it via illustrator and save as acad

years since i used illustrator but i know it will read some acad

[Richard McCarthy]

Found a way, but it isn't the most efficient and accurate way.

 

1. Open it up in Adobe Illustrator

 

2. Export it to DWG

 

Problem is a lot of line is approximate of original lines.. it uses hundreds of lines to construct one line.

[Richard McCarthy]

to my knowledge you don't

one of the project i work on has a intranet withich uploads plotplot files and pdfs

i go with plot files and use a viewer

then again you may be able to open it via illustrator and save as acad

years since i used illustrator but i know it will read some acad

 

 

Yeh I want to open up this PDF file which is a site drawing (originally DWG) exported to PDF. I guess the original draftsmen doesn't want to share this drawing so he exported to PDF.

[mbr]

Acrobat? Don't know, dont' have it, never used it, but I've always heard good things about it.

 

But yeah, that's what we do when we send acad files and don't want someone using them - send a pdf.

[GeraldH]

I've not used it myself...but my cohorts report that this works.

 

Good luck.

 

Free:

Ghostscript and GhostView (GSview)

 

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

[GeraldH]

This just in...

...a little more specific info..

 

 

Get Ghostscript and

GSView here (scroll down to Windows):

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/get814.htm

 

Install Ghostscript then GSView.

Run GSView.

Open the PDF.

Go to Edit menu and pick Convert to vector format.

Save DXF

Open DXF in AutoCAD.

 

If it is not a raster it will show up (might need to zoom extents). Note

that the scale will be off, so if you have a dimension use SCALE reference

to fix it.

[vizwhiz]

Richard

 

here is a link to some software That can convert raster to vector

 

http://www.gtx.com/

 

**

 

hope This helps

 

Randy

[nolanleblanc]

Lately, we have been hearing more of this very question - how can I convert my PDF to CAD? GTX software works on many raster formats, but depending on how the Acrobat (PDF) file was originally created, it may very well contain some type of TIFF file. The trick is exporting the TIFF data to where you can do something with it (e.g., load it into GTXRaster CAD to re-vectorize it).

 

Adobe Reader V7 does seem to have a Picture Tasks plug-in, but it only works with "picture tasks-enabled" PDF files and therefore does not seem to be consistently available. There are other ways (e.g., "Snapshot") but you risk having an unusably low resolution. You need at least 300 DPI in order to have adequate raster to vector results.

 

You may be able to get a printer driver that prints TIFF files. This can be useful, but you want to make sure that you save it as a bitonal/binary (black and white) image and, when thresholding from color or gray to black and white, you don't "dither" the results or (again) the TIFF will be of ery limited use. You want nice solid black lines, and a dithering threshold will put many holes in the resulting raster data.

 

Once you have a black and white (binary) TIFF, you should be able to use raster to vector software, like GTXRaster CAD PLUS, to import the TIFF and convert the raster back into vector.

 

As we're always trying to make things easier, we might come up with a better way of doing this - you never know!

 

Hope that helps!

 

//\\//olan

 

> Hi everyone, just a question... does anyone know how to convert PDF

> to DWG??

[Schroeder]

PDF's published directly from Autocad are in vector format (provided you're not exporting raster images). So, converting from a PDF vector file to a raster and then performing raster to vector will comprimise the data. You're better off doing as you mentioned, bringing it into Illustrator and exporting to DWG/DXF.

 

All of that said, there's probably a reason the file is only available in PDF format. It's the protocol of many offices to only release drawings in PDF, since they believe it's 'secure', un-alterable, etc., rather than a drafter not wanting to share. These days, a lot of people are switching to DWF for that, but it'll be a while before that takes off. If you cannot contact the firm to get the original AutoCAD file, or you have and they won't give it to you, then you might want to think twice about using the file for your work. Not having seen it, the judgment is of course yours, but it's something to consider. A more curruent version may exist, there may be legal matters surrounding it's use, etc..

[Richard McCarthy]

Thanks guys for all your help!

I appreciated it.