Exchanging Drawings as DXF

DXF is the common language CAD programs use to exchange drawings. It was invented by Autodesk, and essentially every CAD program can read and write it — which makes it the way a Pingendum drawing reaches a laser cutter, a CAM package, or a colleague using AutoCAD.

.pingdrw is Pingendum's own format and keeps everything. DXF is for sending work elsewhere.

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Prerequisites

• A drawing to send, or a .dxf file to open.

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Opening a DXF

File ▸ Import DXF…, the Import DXF card on the Welcome tab, or simply File ▸ Open on a .dxf file. There is no keyboard shortcut.

What happens. The file opens as a new drawing in its own tab, named after the file. It is not merged into whatever you had open.

What comes across: layers, linetypes, blocks, text, dimensions and hatches. The file's layouts become sheets, with their viewports — so a drawing that was laid out for printing arrives laid out.

Pingendum reads DXF files from R12 onwards, which covers anything you are realistically sent.

Your DXF file is never written over

The new drawing is named after the file but is not tied to it. The first time you save, Pingendum asks where to put it and writes a .pingdrw.

That is deliberate: your work is kept in the format that holds everything, and the file you were sent stays as it arrived.

If something could not come across

When part of the file has no equivalent here, Pingendum says so as the drawing opens:

Opened plan.dxf. Some of it could not come across:

followed by a list.

Read that list. A file that opens "successfully" but looks wrong has usually had something left out, and the list names it — normally enough for you to go back to the sender and ask for a re-export without that feature.

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Sending a DXF

File ▸ Export as DXF…. No keyboard shortcut.

The drawing is written in AutoCAD 2010's DXF format — one modern format, nothing to choose. Your own drawing file and any unsaved changes are untouched.

What goes out:

• Your layers, with their names, colours, linetypes and lineweights, so the drawing arrives organised the way you organised it.
• Blocks as blocks, and each placement as an insert.
• Text, dimensions and hatches as their proper DXF entities.
• Each sheet as a layout, with its viewports. The file even opens on the sheet you had open.
• Text in the Standard style is written in Noto Sans — the font the drawing itself uses — so it measures the same in the other program and nothing reflows.

If a DXF file cannot hold something as it stands — a layer name DXF does not allow, say — that is listed once the file has been written. The file is still written; the list is a report, not a failure. It exists so that an approximation is never mistaken for an exact copy.

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What a DXF is, and is not

A DXF carries geometry and its organisation. It is a result, not a working model.

There is nothing in the format for the drafting aids, the preferences, or the way you got to the shape — and, since Pingendum 2D is a drafting program rather than a parametric one, there is nothing like that to lose anyway. What you drew is what travels.

If someone needs to carry on editing your design, send them the .pingdrw if they use Pingendum. Send DXF when they use something else.

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DWG is not supported

Pingendum 2D reads and writes DXF only. There is no DWG import or export in this release — no command offers it, and no converter is bundled.

If a colleague sends you a .dwg, ask for a DXF instead. Every program that writes DWG can also write DXF: AutoCAD, DraftSight, QCAD, LibreCAD, BricsCAD and Fusion all have Save As ▸ DXF.

In the other direction, a DXF written by Pingendum opens directly in all of those, so asking for DXF is rarely an imposition.

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Next Steps

You can now:

• Open a DXF from another program, and know it arrives as a new drawing with its layers, blocks and sheets.
• Read the note that says what could not come across, and act on it.
• Export your drawing as AutoCAD 2010 DXF, sheets and all.
• Explain why you need a DXF rather than a DWG.

Next: Saving and Managing Projects