PDF2CAD Anniversary Edition
Get a free gift! Choose a free extension, plug-in or support subscription for proven PDF to DWG tool. Celebrate our 21st birthday! Now, through 21-december-2015, get a free gift when you purchase pdf2cad or pdf2cad To Go. The gifts include an upgrade, protection plan or plug-in for our popular and proven PDF to DWG and DXF utility. Capable of extracting all objects and text from a computer-generated PDF drawing for immediate use in AutoCAD and other CAD/CAM programs, pdf2cad is an indispensable, time-saving tool.
Today, PDF is everywhere and it’s the de facto exchange format across most organizations. Previously, drawings locked in the PDF format would need to be redrawn, traced or approximated. Now, for computer-generated PDF files, the complete drawing can be extracted with accuracy, ready for modification in just seconds. Note that pdf2cad is not designed for scanned drawings and is limited to generating a PDF underlay or tracing layer for the files.
AVAILABILITY AND PRICING
The pdf2cad Anniversary edition is available as an immediate download for $199 or can be purchased on an 8 GB USB drive. This edition, pdf2cad “To Go”, is a Home/Office license which costs $249 and may be run directly from the USB drive or installed on multiple computers for use by one user. The idea is that it can be used in the office, at home, on the road or at a client’s site directly from the USB drive.
Both Anniversary editions includes one free gift from the following four choices:
- A Home/Office upgrade from the standard single-user, single PC license to the single-user, multiple location Home/Office license (value $54)
- 18 month Advantage Support Subscription providing free updates, upgraded, new versions and priority support ($60 value)
- The PDFin plug-in for AutoCAD allowing the user to open a PDF file for editing from within AutoCAD via the menu, ribbon toolbar or command-line (value $59)
- The pdf2bricscad plug-in which enables opening and editing of PDF files within BricsCAD (value $59)
CHOOSE YOUR FREE GIFT NOW
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Fly SDK is available for purchase or as an Annual SDK Subscription. On this page, you can purchase FLY SDK along with optional Advantage Support which provides all updates, upgrades, new versions, replacement software and support.
Purchase FLY SDK
Price shown are for FLY SDK/50 – SDK with 50 RTU licenses. Add the SDK to the cart to see pricing options for 250 and 2,500 RTU licenses. Volumes above 2,500 RTU require OEM pricing. Contact us for a price quote.
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Notes:
- Advantage Support provides all updates, upgrades and new versions as well as priority support and is highly recommended
- SDK’s are licensed for use per application or project. Name must be included in license or confirmation email.
- A supplemental, optional Priority Engineering Subscription (PEP) offers high-level access to engineers, patches outside of the release cycle, priority troubleshooting and integration optimization. 3 months at $1500 or at $5000 per year.
- SDK’s include a number of runtime licenses (50, 250 or 2,500). For applications requiring distribution to more than 2,500 users, please contact us for an OEM quote.
- Your resulting GUI-based application requires a run-time per user licenses (RTU).
- Available as SDK libraries or as a command line API for Windows, Linux and MAC OS X (32- and 64-bit)
- FLY SDK input format is PDF unless otherwise noted.
- Contact Visual Integrity for alternate pricing options such as custom input/output options, bundle licensing, paid-up OEM licenses, royalty arrangements or other options to best fit with your business plan.
pdf2cad To Go
pdf2cad To Go is perfect for CAD/CAM professionals who need to use a license in the office, at home and on the client’s premises. This handy USB includes a Home/Office license of pdf2cad that can be installed in up to three locations for use by a single-user plus, the software can be run directly from the USB drive. Just pop it in any PC and start working. It includes ample space to save work in progress and your collection of converted files. With pdf2cad To Go, you will have great flexibility in how and where you use pdf2cad. It’s always available on your PC or in your pocket.
pdf2cad is the premier solution for converting PDF, EPS and Adobe Illustrator files into DWG for AutoCAD as well as DXF, the industry-standard, universal interchange format. Conversion to the HPGL plotting format is also included.
For more information on pdf2cad, visit the pdf2cad product overview page.
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Getting Started with the PDFin plug-in
- Download the Full version ($79) or watermarked Trial version (Free) from the Autodesk Exchange
- Double-click the installation file (.msi) to load plug-in within your Autodesk application
- Open your Autodesk application – in this example, AutoCAD 2013
- The PDFin plug-in can be run two ways – either via command line or from the Toolbar.
To Run the PDFin plug-in from the Command Line:
Type the command pdfin and hit return
To launch, use the pdfin command on the command line
To run the PDFin plug-in from the Toolbar, just click on the program icon:
Once the PDFin icon is added to the Toolbar Ribbon, you can use it to instantly open any vector PDF file in AutoCAD
If you do not see the icon, you must add it using View, Toolbars. Scroll down to the pdfin icon and then drag it to the Ribbon and insert it.
Using PDFin
Upon launch, a dialog will open asking you to Select a PDF file. Choose the file you wish to open from your file system and click Open.
Select the PDF file you want to open in AutoCAD
After selecting the file, you may briefly see a Command window open. Wait for it to close before proceeding. The command tool will display any warnings or messages while opening the PDF file in AutoCAD. These include identifying the trial version or notifying you that some fonts in the file may not be on your system and will be substituted with as close a match as possible. Once the command tool window automatically closes, press OK in the AutoCAD Message dialog.
PDFin information and warnings
Click OK to view the PDF file in AutoCAD
At this point, the PDF file will be opened on screen and will be ready for editing. If you are using the Trial version, you will see a watermark stamped on each converted file consisting of some text and a grid. This watermark is not stamped on PDF files opened with the fully licensed version.
Below is an example of a PDF file opened with a watermarked Trial version:
example of PDF file opened in AutoCAD with watermarked Trial version of the PDFin plug-in
Tips and tricks
PDFin is not for Scanned Drawings
The PDFin plug-in will produce excellent results from PDF files output by software and print programs. However, it is not designed to vectorize scanned drawings (raster PDf files). These are flat images which have no data to extract. When you convert a raster PDF file, you will generate an empty page in AutoCAD which references the scanned image as either a TIFF or JPEG file.
PDFin is not for scanned drawings
If you get this error, use the file as a PDF Underlay as a basis for tracing or annotating it. If you need to vectorize it, search for “CAD raster to vector” on-line for possible offerings. The results you can expect will be determined by the quality of the scanned drawing and the design complexity. Simple line-art can be effectively traced using tools available in Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.
Learn more – How to Know if you have a Vector PDF or Raster PDF
Upgrading to the Full License
If you have the Trial version on your system and want to upgrade to the full version, you will need to remove the Trail version using the Control panel, Uninstall Programs. Once it is removed, double-click on the installation file you received upon purchase. The full version, without any watermarks, is now available to use once you re-open AutoCAD.
Uninstall Trial before installing the Full License of the PDFin plug-in
Will My Text be Editable?
If the PDF file contains characters, pdf2cad will convert them and map them as MTEXT objects in the AutoCAD file. Unfortunately, when creating a PDF file from a CAD drawing, the text isn’t always retained. Sometimes it is “plotted” as pen strokes or turned into curves. When this happens, the character definition is lost. There is nothing that pdf2cad can do about this – it can only reproduce the curves (=SPLINES entities) in the DXF file. What looks like text in the original file may actually just be an object, comprised of a series of pen strokes that looks like a letter.
Whether or not text will be editable depends on how the original PDF file was created. In many cases, the text will be ediable as MTEXTs, line by line. However, sometimes text is “plotted” as pen strokes when the PDF file is created. In this case, what looks like text on screen is really a grouping of pen strokes. An “E” for example, is three horizontal strokes and one vertical stroke grouped together to resemble a “E”.
A plotted “E” is really 4 pen strokes grouped together as a graphical object representing the letter E.
Tip: to see if the text in your PDF drawing is live and editable, open the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat (Reader) and use the Text Select tool. If you cannot highlight any words, the text is already outlined to curves or plotted. If a PDF file contains selectable text, pdf2cad will reproduce it as MTEXT in the DXF file, preserving the fonts and styles.
Tip: To create a PDF with searchable text from AutoCAD, make sure to use TrueType fonts in the drawing and ensure that your printer driver is set to retain text as text instead of converting it to curves. Text can be lost in either of these two steps in creating a PDF file. See how to create a PDF file with searchable text from CAD Digest.
Tip: if your PDF files contain non-Roman font text (such as Chinese, Arabic or Cyrillic), or if the text looks garbled in the DXF output, try using the “Convert characters to curves” option in the General tab of the Options menu of pdf2cad. This outlines the text during conversion to ensure WYSIWYG rendering (not editable).
Learn more about Font & Text problems in our FAQ
Fonts Don’t Always Travel Well
When a PDF file is created, it includes information about the fonts used to create it. Apart from some standard Windows fonts, there are may differences amongst font collections on individual systems. When a PDF file is opened in AutoCAD, it will look to the system font directory to see if there are matches. If fonts do not match, it will identify and use the closest substitute. In most cases, the substituted font will look fine in the AutoCAD file. If not, you select the text and choose a different font or contact us to see if it’s possible to do a font mapping (support@visual-integrity.com).