DraftSight PDF Import Tool

SOLIDWORKS in has many tools in its arsenal and one that I hope every user knows about is DraftSight. DraftSight is used for accessing existing DWG files and creating new DWG files at a fraction of the cost of the alternative CAD product. If you want to learn more about DraftSight please go to https://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/

DraftSight, like SOLIDWORKS, has Add-ins available to enhance its capabilities, and one of the newest Add-ins is a PDF Import tool. PDFImport converts and imports PDF files into entities you can modify in DraftSight and save in DWG or DXF. This add-in can also filter the entities created by color and create one layer for each to help you rebuild the layers. You may also use the batch conversion feature to convert many files in once. PDFImport works with the free version of DraftSight, as well as Professional and Enterprise.

Note: Hovering over the images shows a bigger preview of each sheet.
The result imported into the DWG Editor looks as follows

The PDF imports as a block and needs to be exploded before editing.

I have tested the new DraftSight PDFImport tool with several different files and found this took works great for almost anything that I was able to throw at it. The only PDF files that it does not convert into line entities are scanned documents or hand sketches.

Now the real benefit for SOLIDWORKS users is that we can now bring the PDF that we converted to a DWG into SOLIDWORKS.


So with the new tools that have been added to DraftSight not only does this make DraftSight a more powerful tool it also adds to the capabilities of SOLIDWORKS.