Why no dxf support in Page & Layout Designer 10?

**jaydear** · 03 January 2015, 12:12 AM

I am an electronics equipment designer and I have used CorelDraw since v3

but stopped updating at v12 because it was just getting more expensive, more bloated and no more stable. I have it running on Win 7 and Win 8 and it's a bit crashy on the latter which is no surprise, but you gotta try, right?

CorelDraw was always the most brilliant program for importing .dxf or .plt files (plot files are the instructions for an x-y plotter) at precise size so that I could then design artwork to be screen printed on equipment panels.

So I am very surprised and disappointed to find that Page & Layout Designer which is touted as being a credible and affordable alternative to CorelDraw cannot at least import .dxf files! This has to be a major oversight from Xara because dxf is an important CAD file type.

Can anyone suggest where I go from here? I've tried Libre Draw, Inkscape (which has potential, but not without a user manual), and some others, but they all pale in comparison to Corel and Xara Designer IMHO.

**Acorn** · 03 January 2015, 11:16 AM

If you have W7 Professional, you could install the Windows XP emulator and run CD in it.

There are free utilities about but I've no experience of them: http://sharewarebooster.com/dwgconve...converter.html / Vendor by: DWG TOOL Software, Website: http://www.dwgtool.com/index.htm.

Acorn

**jaydear** · 03 January 2015, 06:41 PM

You gave me a very good clue Acorn! I hadn't thought of using pdf's as a source file for Designer. I found a free alternative to convert dxf's to pdf's and the files seem to import without problems. I haven't tried any huge page formats or mega-complex dxf's yet, but for the sizes and relatively low complexity I use it looks OK so far. Entities with curves such as circles are actually made up from thousands of tiny straight lines, so may not be any good for some users, but as a background template are fine for my purposes.

LibreCAD https://sourceforge.net/projects/lib...files/Windows/ has a nice gui, works natively with dxf's and outputs excellent pdf's. It is also available for OS X and Linux.

I still think Xara should provide a DXF import filter though.

**Acorn** · 03 January 2015, 08:16 PM

And here's me sitting with LibreCAD in my PortableApps directory - forgot to check there first.

As to lumpy circles, I have found smoothing to around 50% leaves a dozen or so points and the rendering is still quite close.

Acorn

**jaydear** · 03 January 2015, 10:16 PM

That works, thanks. I was just fooling around in Photo & Graphic Designer and found that the 'circles' can't be filled. By zooming right in to like 16000% and making a tiny edit with the shape painter tool it instantly fills. All good.

**Albacore** · 04 January 2015, 11:43 AM

I was a technical teacher in Scotland for many years and in our Technological Studies we produced small prototyping circuit boards and we used Solid Edge 2D CAD free ver. which did us well and it also could export to various formats including PDF: http://www.plm.automation.siemens.co...2d/index.shtml
Recently the schools now get the benefit of AutoDesk Inventor given free to all establishments and it goes with 3D rendering as well. It depends what you're looking for but I always think look for the tools which will speed up your work flow and I don't really think PLD 10 is really the programme for you unless you want to make your circuits visually appealing! OK SolidEdge is a command line based programme and it may take some learning but I think in a week that you will be comfortable with it and have the ability to send instructions to your plotter straight from that programme saving loads of time. Just a thought.

**Coltatts** · 04 January 2015, 06:06 PM

Hi jaydear,

Try BabaCAD for your DXF & DWG needs, it's also FREE.
http://www.babacad.com/index.html

HTH, Colin

**jaydear** · 04 January 2015, 06:09 PM

I love Scotland. My pcb's are already things of beauty

but I am talking about panels for the cases that contain them. Protel outputs dxf's to be read by the CAD s/w I employ to make detailed drawings for the sheetmetal fabricators, but I also have to generate art for the screen printing of the cases and it needs to be accurate, thus the need for s/w such as Corel and PLD10 that can retain the accuracy as well as gracefully manipulate fonts and colours. DXF (data exchange format) has been the common thread, and plot files have also been useful in the past when a rogue dxf won't co-operate, but Corel is 1. too expensive and 2. has a learning curve with every new version which 3. exposes a bunch of new bugs! Quality-wise, Xara is up there with Corel (strange that!), but for the missing dxf input/output filters. However, Acorn has reminded me that pdf's can be just as useful as dxf's for my purposes, but I'll need to convert them to pdf's with LibreCAD so I can get at what I need once I commit to PLD10 and/or P&GD10.