About this DWG to PDF converter A DWG is the file AutoCAD saves; most people who are sent one - a client, a builder, a planning office, a print shop - have no CAD program to open it, and a PDF is what they can view, check and print. This page opens the DWG (or a DXF), draws it as AutoCAD does, with its layers, colours, linetypes, lineweights, text, dimensions, hatches, tables and blocks, and writes a PDF of it in sharp vector lines.
Most online DWG to PDF converters upload the drawing to their server and send a PDF back. Here the DWG is read by LibreDWG, the GNU project’s DWG reader, compiled to WebAssembly and run inside the page; the converter (about 10 MB) downloads the first time and the drawing itself stays on your computer. That matters for the plans of someone’s home, a part that is not public yet, or anything under a confidentiality agreement. It is free to use, with no account and no upload limit, and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and while the page stays open, a feature you have already used keeps working offline.
What you can do Convert DWG to PDF from AutoCAD R14 through 2018 and later, and DXF to PDF from R12 onwards Print at a true scale: metric 1:1 to 1:10000 (and 2:1 to 10:1), architectural 1/16" = 1'-0" to 12" = 1'-0", engineering 1" = 10' to 1" = 1000' - or fit the drawing to the paper Paper from A4 to A0, US Letter, Legal and Tabloid, ANSI C, D and E, and Arch C, D and E1, portrait or landscape, with the margin you choose The Model tab or any layout: a layout prints whole at full size (1:1) on the paper its page setup names, with its viewports showing the model at their own scale Every tab in one PDF: the model and each layout, one page each, each layout on its own paper size Colour as drawn, greyscale, or black and white for a crisp plot on an office printer Lineweights on or off: on, each line is its real width in millimetres; off, every line is 0.25 mm Hatches print as their real pattern lines (brick, ANSI31 and the rest), clipped to their outline with islands left empty; only a pattern too dense to draw line by line becomes a tint Switch layers off first - furniture, dimensions, notes - and the PDF leaves them out Many drawings at once: choose several files or a whole folder under Convert many drawings at once, set the PDF options once, and get one ZIP of PDFs with the folders kept; any drawing that cannot be converted, or does not fit the paper at the chosen scale, is listed with the reason Before saving, every page is listed with the paper, orientation and scale it will come out at How to convert a DWG to PDF Drop the .dwg (or .dxf) on the box above, or click it and choose the file. A DWG takes a few seconds longer while it is converted. The drawing opens with the PDF options above it. Pick the tab to print (Model or a layout) with the tabs over the drawing, or choose Every tab. Choose the paper, orientation and margin, and Fit or a scale. Under the options each page is listed as it will come out, such as “A3 landscape, 1:50”. Choose colour, greyscale or black and white, and whether to print lineweights, then press Save PDF. Printing a DWG to scale A scale says how much smaller the paper is than the real thing: at 1:100 a 10 metre wall is 100 mm long on paper, and at 1/4" = 1'-0" (1:48) each foot is a quarter of an inch. The page works this out from the units the drawing was saved in ($INSUNITS: millimetres, metres, inches, feet and so on). Some drawings do not say their units; then choose them under “1 drawing unit is”, or choose Fit. If the drawing will not fit on the paper at the scale you choose, the page says how big it would be and how much room the paper has, rather than quietly shrinking it - a PDF that claims 1:100 and is not is worse than none. Choose larger paper, a smaller scale or Fit.
Fit to the paper fills the sheet inside the margin and says roughly what scale that came to. It is right for looking at a drawing; for measuring off the printout, use a scale.
Model space and layouts The model is the drawing at full size. Layouts (the tabs along the bottom in AutoCAD) are the sheets it is printed on: a title block and one or more viewports, each showing part of the model at a scale. When a layout has a page setup - A1 at 841 × 594 mm, say - its PDF page is that paper size, with the layout’s sheet on it at full size (1:1), so each viewport comes out at its own scale. That is how almost every layout is set up to plot. The page setup’s own plot scale, plot area and offset are not read, though: a layout set up to plot scaled down (an A1 sheet onto A3, say) or only a window of it still comes out whole at 1:1 on the A1 page here. The model, and a layout without a page setup, use the paper and scale chosen here.
Questions
Is the DWG uploaded anywhere? No. The DWG converter is downloaded to your browser, not your drawing to a server: reading, drawing and writing the PDF all happen on your computer.
Which DWG versions does it read? DWG files from AutoCAD R14 (1997) through AutoCAD 2018 and later, which still save in the 2018 format, and ASCII DXF files from R12 onwards. Very old R13 and earlier DWGs, and damaged files, may not convert; if one opens in a CAD program, saving it again from there will usually work here.
Will the PDF look exactly like AutoCAD’s? Close, but not identical. Text is set in a standard sans-serif rather than AutoCAD’s SHX fonts, so lettering can be slightly wider or narrower; plot style tables (.ctb and .stb) are not read, so colour, greyscale or black and white is chosen here instead. Geometry, layers, colours, linetypes, lineweights and scales follow the file.
Can I convert a whole folder of DWG files to PDF? Yes. Under Convert many drawings at once, choose PDF, set the paper, scale, colour and lineweights, then choose the files or the folder (up to 500 drawings, each up to 200 MB). They are converted one after another in your browser and saved as one ZIP, with each drawing’s PDF in the same folder it came from. Each PDF is the tab its drawing was saved on, or every tab if you choose. A drawing that cannot be read, or that does not fit the paper at the scale chosen, is skipped and listed with the reason, never shrunk.
Can it convert DXF to PDF too? Yes. A DXF opens the same way, with nothing to convert first, and prints with the same paper, scale and colour choices.
Is the PDF vector or a picture? Vector: lines stay sharp however far you zoom in, and the file stays small. One limit: the PDF’s built-in font has Western European letters only, so a page with text in other scripts (Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese and so on) goes in as a picture 4,000 pixels across instead, still at the right size and scale but not as crisp when zoomed in. Can I just look at the drawing, or get a DXF instead? The DWG viewer opens the same drawing to pan, zoom, measure and switch layers, and DWG to DXF saves it as a DXF for LibreCAD, a laser cutter or a CNC router.
Why is the code of this converter published? The DWG converter, LibreDWG, is licensed under the GNU GPL, so the code of this page, which runs with it, is published under GPL-3.0 at /source/dxf-viewer/ on this site.