How to Convert PDF to CAD (DWG) in AutoCAD — 1 Minute

There are various ways to convert PDF to CAD; however, it’s difficult to maintain the correct ratio and drawing lines. In this video, you’ll learn how to convert PDF to CAD (DWG) in AutoCAD easily and fast in just 1 minute.

What You Need to Convert PDF to CAD in AutoCAD

• AutoCAD 2018 or higher (the built-in PDFIMPORT tool ships in every full version since 2017, and also in AutoCAD LT 2018+)
• A PDF file — ideally one exported from CAD/vector software, not a scan

Steps:

• Open AutoCAD version 2018 or higher
• Select “Insert” from the toolbar — click the PDF “Import” button (or just type PDFIMPORT on the command line to convert PDF to DWG)
• Select the PDF file you want to convert and click “Open”
• A window will pop up. Keep the initial parameters and click “OK”
• Hover the pointer and choose the insertion point
• Your PDF has been converted and it is a single block. You can choose to explode the block and edit it
• Always keep in mind the scale of drawings

  

  

  

What actually gets converted to CAD (and what doesn’t)

The reason this method is “easy” is that it only works on vector PDFs — files exported from a CAD program, a printer driver, or any app that draws true lines. PDFIMPORT reads those lines, arcs, fills and TrueType text and rebuilds them as native AutoCAD geometry, preserving layers, lineweights and colors.

• A scanned drawing or a photo of a blueprint will NOT vectorize. AutoCAD imports a raster PDF only as a flat picture — it has no built-in raster-to-vector (the import dialog even greys out the geometry options). For scans you need an OCR/vectorization tool first, then import the result.
• Text drawn with SHX fonts comes in as polylines, not editable text. Only TrueType text survives as MTEXT. To recover the SHX strings, run PDFSHXTEXT after importing and lower the Recognition Threshold (e.g. from 95% to ~50%) so loosely-matched geometry is recognized as text.
• Watch the scale — some exporters embed the wrong units. PDFs created by Fusion 360 and a few others come in 25.4× too small or too large; if your drawing imports at the wrong size, set the insertion scale factor to 25.4 (or its reciprocal) instead of measuring and re-scaling by hand.
• PDF coordinates are stored in single precision while DWG uses double precision, so on very large or very detailed drawings expect tiny rounding differences — always confirm a known dimension after import rather than trusting it blindly.

Nguyen Huu Khanh

Architect turned developer