PDF to AutoCAD

We recently needed to import a PDF file into AutoCAD and determined the workflow that seems to produce the best results.

First you need to load the PDF file into Adobe Illustrator. If you don't have Illustrator loaded on your machine then you'll need to use the Public Graphics Computer in the Abodia.

Once you've loaded your PDF in Illustrator, use the File pulldown menu and choose 'Export'. You'll see in the 'Save as Type' pulldown an option for DWG. Choose DWG and filename/destination. Once you click 'Save', you'll then be guided to a dialog box [see below]. I've shown the dialog box setup as you should have it.



When you then load the resultant DWG into your AutoCAD session you'll need to do a full purge/audit [pa as a shortcut]. This will clean up the file as initially our experience shows that the file exported directly from Illustrator creates a very large DWG file.