Autocad's new DWF viewer

[mjpliv]

Autocad has released DWF VIEWER which is a replacement for their old Autocad Express Viewer which was a replacement for their older Autocad !Whip.

Generally Autocad users work with DWG and DXF files. These files contain the actual, editable drawings. Most architects, engineers and designers will not part with their drawing files for love nor money.

DWF files are actually electronic plots and cannot be edited. Another feature of these files are the size. A reasonably complex drawing file for house can be well in excess of 1 megabyte. The same drawing set plotted to a DWG file can be as little as 100K or eveb less.

The Autocad DWF VIEWER is free to anyone and can be downloaded at http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=2787358&siteID=123112

In the event you are working with anyone producing drawings with Autocad 2000 or later, thay have the capacity to plot this file type and be secure in the fact that the drawing cannot be altered (except with some White-Out and a pencil).

When you install the software, it also adds a plugin to your Internet Explorer that will open DWF files that are imbedded as links on a website. The drawings open inside your browser window just like any other image link you would click on.

Go to http://www.buildersmatrix.com/test_dwf/ . I have (or will in about ten minutes) uploaded a single webpage with two drawing file links if anyone wants to download the software and try it. One is a single sheet drawing and the other is a multi-sheet drawing. Some of the older Cad versions cannot produce muti-sheet drawings. There is also a menu to view the plan sheets with your browser. I publish all of my plans this way to a secure website so that sub-trades, agents and management with usernames and passwords always have access to current plan sets.

[mjpliv]

That page is uploaded and tested.

Try printing the plan sheets. The quality of the print is the same as if I printed them right from the original autocad files using Autocad. If you tell it to fit the page it will reduce the drawings to fit what ever media you have. If you can print to 11x17 then tell it to print to 100% - the drawings will be true to scale. If you tell it to print 100% using 8-1/2x11 the drawing will be split between four sheets and the software will add litttle cros hairs to help align the edges for the re-assembly of a scales drawing.

I packaged the downloadable files as zips so that they would not open in the browser.

A few notes - if you download the files and use the DWF Viewer to view them you can turns the drawing layers on and off.

To print the drawings use the plugin tool bar and not the Internet Explorer print button because it uses different drivers to create the print job.

[grumpydasmurf]

I have autocad 2004, is there any need to download the viewer?

[mjpliv]

Have a look in your start/programs list! if you see the folder called "Autodesk" see if you have Express Viewer or DWF Viewer listed.

If not, you would have at least Autocad !Whip installed because it was packaged with all the Autocad2000 products and later and but it was only an Internet Explorer program and not a stand alone piece of software so it does not show up in your programs menu.

If you have Express Viewer follow the link in the top posting to upgrade - hey its free!

[grumpydasmurf]

express.

Is it really worth upgrading?

[mjpliv]

The best feature of the new viewer (other than the fact it is free) is that you can open one file and see all of the plan sheets as thumbnail to the side which makes for easier navigation.

Another equally important reason to upgrade would be if you only had !whip because you won't be able to view the DWF's generated by the newer Autocad products.

I use this feature every day, both uploading files to our secure site for company use, transfering files to engineers or surveyors and emailing "plans in progress" to customers for comments or revisions.

[Rich]

I've also got 2004 and I had no trouble in viewing the drawings (without downloading anything).
I've used this on Buzzsaw (not sure if that's even active anymore) for a project we did. It ended up being more tedious at that time to mess with. We ended up talking the architect / engineer into giving us the documents to do lift drawings from.