How to convert a PDF to DXF
- Drop the PDF on the box above, or click Open a PDF. The PDF is read in this browser tab and never uploaded.
- Pick the page with the arrows beside Page. The lines from the page are drawn over a faint image of the page, so you can see what came across.
- If the drawing was printed to a scale, such as 1:20, type 20 under Drawing scale, 1 to. The DXF then holds the part at full size.
- Choose Millimetres or Inches, and click Download DXF. Each page downloads as a DXF of its own.
To try the steps first, click Try a sample: a flange plate drawn at 1:1 on page 1 and at 1:2 on page 2.
What comes across from the PDF
A PDF page made by CAD, or by any program that draws lines, holds paths: moves, straight lines, Bezier curves and rectangles, the operators that ISO 32000-1 lists in section 8.5.2. The converter reads every path that is stroked or filled, through the page's transforms and through any forms placed on the page.
- True scale. PDF measures in units of 1/72 inch, unless the page sets a UserUnit, as section 8.3.2.3 of the same standard describes. The converter applies both, and the rotation and crop box of the page, so the DXF matches the page as a PDF reader shows it.
- Arcs and circles. PDF has no arc operator, so an arc on a PDF page is stored as Bezier curves. When a curve follows a circle within 0.03% of the radius, the converter writes a true arc, and a closed ring of those arcs becomes a circle. Other curves become short straight segments within 0.01 mm of the curve.
- Layers. A PDF with layers, which the standard calls optional content groups (section 8.11), gives the DXF one layer for each group, with the same name. Text goes on a layer named TEXT.
- Text. Each piece of text becomes a DXF TEXT entity at the same place, angle and height. The diameter, degree and plus-minus signs become AutoCAD's %%c, %%d and %%p codes.
- Colours. Lines keep their colour as the nearest basic AutoCAD colour. Black keeps the layer colour.
White filled areas with no outline, such as a page background, are left out. So are comments and markups added in a PDF reader.
Getting the scale right
At a drawing scale of 1, the DXF has the size of the printed page: a line 100 mm long on the paper is 100 mm long in the DXF. A large part is usually drawn smaller than life, so read the scale in the title block and type the second number under Drawing scale, 1 to.
Then check one dimension that you can read on the drawing. Open the DXF in the DXF viewer and click a line to measure the contour it belongs to. A drawing printed to fit the page has no exact scale. For one of those, divide a real dimension by the same length in the DXF at a scale of 1, and type the result as the scale.
What the converter cannot read
- Scans. A scanned page is a picture of a drawing, with no paths in it. Adobe's Acrobat help notes that a scanned document holds only image data until text recognition adds a searchable text layer, and text recognition adds no lines. Take a screenshot of the page and trace the screenshot with the PNG to DXF converter.
- Text drawn as lines. When a PDF draws letters as paths instead of text, the letters come across as lines.
- Dashes and line weights. Dashed and dotted lines come across as solid lines, and line weights are dropped.
- Hatching and fills. A hatch pattern comes across as many short lines, and a filled area as the outline of the area. Untick Filled shapes to leave fills out.
- Clipping. A PDF can crop a drawing to a viewport. The converter does not apply the crop, so lines outside the viewport come across in full.
Other ways to get PDF geometry into CAD
If you have AutoCAD, the PDFIMPORT command imports the geometry, fills, raster images and TrueType text from a PDF into a drawing. Autodesk's help adds that AutoCAD does not convert raster images into lines either. This page suits a drawing you would rather not upload, or a DXF of one page without opening CAD. The PDF reader here is pdf.js, an open source library supported by Mozilla, which loads from a public CDN the first time you open a PDF.
Quote the parts in the PDF drawings customers send
Tell Derik how requests for quote reach your estimators and which drawings they price from. He will tell you what a four-week build would cover.
Start a conversationFrom a customer drawing to a quote
A request for quote can arrive with a PDF drawing and no CAD file. Converting the drawing to DXF gives the estimator geometry to measure: for a part cut from sheet or plate, the DXF viewer returns the cut length, the pierces and the weight.
ThriveAI builds quoting systems that read each request with the drawings attached, take the dimensions off each drawing and draft the quote from the shop's own rates, for an estimator to approve. See AI quoting software for how the build works.