How do I open a DWG file in PDF

Home

• News & Insights

  • News & Insights Home
  • Innovation
  • IT Careers & Skills
  • Cloud
  • Cyber Security
  • Future of Work
  • All Categories
  • Marketing
  • HR
  • Finance

• Community

  • Ask question
  • Community Home
  • Spiceworks Originals
  • Cloud
  • Collaboration
  • Networking
  • Water Cooler
  • Windows
  • All forums
  • How-Tos
  • Scripts
  • Vendors
  • Meetups

• Reviews

• Online Events

Login Join

Login Join

1. Home
2. Best Practices & General IT
3. Document Management
4. How-tos

Spiceworks Help Desk

The help desk software for IT. Free.

Track users' IT needs, easily, and with only the features you need.

Learn More »

Adom (Aryson Technologies)

This person is a verified professional.

Verify your account to enable IT peers to see that you are a professional.

Jul 11, 2022 4 Minute Read

• Spice

• Reply (0)

• Subscribe

• Share
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • LinkedIn

Adom Click

This person is a verified professional.

Verify your account to enable IT peers to see that you are a professional.

Adom (Aryson Technologies)Technical Specialist at Aryson Technologies

---

Areas of expertise What's this? Email

798

Contributions

13

Best Answers

0

Projects

---

Main Areas of Contribution:

• Microsoft Office 365 |
• Microsoft Exchange |
• Microsoft Office |
• Email |
• Data Recovery

Register. Track Progress. Earn Credits.

Learning has never been so easy!

Sign Up

This tutorial shows how to use novaPDF to convert an AutoCAD dwg file to a PDF document (with or without having AutoCAD installed). The conversion is done through a PDF printer driver such as novaPDF. If you do not have novaPDF installed, use the Download page to download and install it.

On this page:

• Convert DWG to PDF using AutoCAD
• Convert DWG to PDF using Autodesk TrueView
• Convert DWG to PDF using SolidWorks eDrawings

  ---

AutoCAD is a CAD (Computer Aided Design) software application for 2D and 3D design and drafting, developed by Autodesk. Converting DWG to PDF is a practical way to share your drawings with other people, without them needing to install AutoCAD. By having novaPDF installed you can easily convert DWG to PDF documents by pressing the Plot/Print button and choosing novaPDF as the printer.

novaPDF has some particular features that make it suitable for converting DWG to PDF:

1. PDF watermarks. You can add automatically a text/image watermark (copyright notice, logo, …) to your converted drawing.
2. PDF security. If your drawing contains sensitive information, novaPDF lets you convert the DWG file to a password protected pdf. This way only recipients that know the password can view its content.
3. PDF merge. You can convert your drawing to a PDF, and after that you can merge the PDF with other documents (for instance if you need to add a price quote from a Word document, you can print the Word document via novaPDF to the PDF that contains your drawing – they will be automatically merged).
4. Email PDF automatically. After converting your drawing to a PDF using novaPDF, you can also email it to other users automatically without having to open separate e-mail programs. To view a detailed tutorial on how to setup novaPDF to convert and send your documents, read Convert and send PDF via E-mail

Convert DWG to PDF using AutoCAD

To convert your DWG file to PDF from AutoCAD:

1. Open AutoCAD and click on the Autocad logo button then Open (or press Ctrl+O), browse for the dwg file you want to convert to PDF and click Open
2. You can print to PDF either from the Model view (your working area) or by using a predefined Layout. Click on the Autocad logo then Print (or press Ctrl+P) and configure your printing options:

   a. In the Plot Area select what you want to convert : Display, Window, Layout or Extents

   b. Choose your paper type from the Paper size dropdown list and in the Plot Scale section select the scale of the printed drawing from the dropdown list

3. From the Printer/plotter section select novaPDF
4. Before converting the dwg file you can customize AutoCAD’s printing settings from the Properties button. To customize novaPDF’s printing settings, click on Properties->Custom Printing options from the Plot window
5. Click on OK and choose a location where you want the PDF file saved

Convert DWG to PDF using Autodesk TrueView

DWG TrueView is a free application from Autodesk which allows users to view and plot AutoCAD DWG and DXF files, and to publish these same files to the DWF file format.

To convert your DWG file to a PDF:

1. In DWG TrueView click on the TrueView logo then Open. Browse for the DWG file you want to convert to PDF and click Open.
2. You can print either from the Model view or by using a predefined Layout. Click the TrueView logo then Print and from the Plot-Model window configure your printing options:

   a. Choose the Paper size from the dropdown list

   b. In the Plot area select what you want to convert: Display, Extents, Limits, View or Window

   c. In the Plot scale section choose the scale to use for printing the drawing

3. Click on OK and choose a location to save the PDF file.

Convert DWG to PDF using SolidWorks eDrawings

eDrawings is a free software from SolidWorks, allowing users to view and print DWG, DXF aside the proprietary SolidWorks files. NOTE: eDrawings currently is compatible only with Windows 7 and Windows 10, it's not compatible with other versions.

To convert a DWG format to PDF using eDrawings:

1. Click on the eDrawings logo then on Open (or press Ctrl+O), browse for the DWG file you want to convert to PDF, select it and click Open
2. Click on the eDrawings logo then on the Print icon that shows under it (or press Ctrl+P) and from the Printer section choose novaPDF
3. If needed, adjust novaPDF’s settings using the Properties button and set custom printing options.
4. Click OK and select a location to save the PDF file

This tutorial shows how to convert DWG files to PDF documents using novaPDF with AutoCAD, Autodesk TrueView, SolidWorks eDrawings and Volo View. If you have suggestions on how to improve this article add a comment or rate it.

What program will open a DWG file?

Can I save an AutoCAD drawing as a PDF?