How to Convert PDF to DWG

[Ken Hetti]

Hi can anyone please let me know if / how to convert a PDF drawing to DWG drawing on Qcad pro . I am working on Mac OS Sequoia version 15.6.1.

[CVH]

Hi, and welcome to the QCAD forum

With the QCAD GUI or without as an automated process?

Using the GUI:
If the PDF contains vector data it is as simple as opening/importing the file and save that as DXF/DWG.

If not, it can be displayed as an Image entity.
An image or bitmap can be traced over to create vector data.
It might that a PDF includes both kinds of content.

Note that an Image entity is only linked to the source and that bitmap data is not stored in the DXF/DWG drawing file.
For an image from a PDF, the image source can be located in a cache folder.
To be portable, the DXF/DWG and image file(s) must be kept together.


Without the GUI and as vector data:
See QCAD Command Line tool dwg2dwg / pdf2dwg

Regards,
CVH

[RobertOsborn]

If the PDF contains vector entities, in QCAD Pro you can usually just open/import the PDF and then Save As DXF/DWG. If it’s a scanned/raster PDF, it will come in as an Image entity only, so you’d need to trace over it (or re-create the geometry) to get real DWG data.

If you want an automated conversion (no GUI), RibbonSoft also provides command line tools like pdf2dwg/dwg2dwg.

[CVH]

@ RobertOsborn,
Thanks for explaining things twice.

WebP >> JPG is/was a bit off-topic. Isn't it?

Also, if you’re posting screenshots of results and your Mac saves them as WebP, you may need to convert to JPG before uploading; is a quick way to do that.

Regards,
CVH

[andrew]

CVH: likely just a spammer...