Guides to customer drawings, PDFs and DXF
Practical answers for fabricators, estimators and CAD/CAM programmers: what kind of PDF you’ve been sent, how to get usable DXF geometry out of it, and what to check before it’s cut.
No card required. Bring your own drawings.
Vector vs raster PDF: what’s the difference?
What each kind of PDF holds, how to tell them apart in a minute, and why it decides how you get a DXF out of a drawing.
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How to convert a scanned PDF to DXF
Redraw it, auto-trace it, send it out or extract the part: what each way of getting a DXF from a scan involves, and where it falls down.
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PDF vs DXF for fabrication: why you need both
What the drawing carries that a DXF can’t, what the shop needs the DXF for, and how to get from one to the other.
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Why PDF to DXF converters bring across the whole drawing
Why a converted DXF arrives full of dimension lines, text and borders, what clearing it up involves, and how extracting just the part differs.
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How to prepare customer drawings for laser cutting
A practical checklist, from the drawing that arrives with the RFQ to geometry you can trust in CAM and nesting.
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Your next job starts here.
Bring the drawing. Leave with the part.