Open Export, tick the pages you want in the page list, and press DWG (AutoCAD 2018) or DXF (2018) in the CAD row. You get one file holding every page you ticked: the drawings in model space at 1:1 in millimetres, and a paper layout per sheet with a scaled viewport, the frame and the title block. The file is written in your browser — nothing is uploaded, no converter, no account.
What is in the file
- Model space carries every ticked plan and elevation as a drawing at real size, in millimetres, laid out in a row so no two views overlap.
- A layout per page, named after the sheet, with a viewport at that sheet’s ratio and the same title block and scale bar as the PDF. Each sheet’s viewport freezes the other views’ layers, so zooming out on a sheet still shows one drawing.
- Native dimensions. A dimension is a real
DIMENSIONentity with a dimension style per ratio, not a bundle of exploded lines — your CAD reports its measurement and letters it in your own text height. - Semantic layers, named
<view>-<category>:PLAN-WALLS,PLAN-OPENINGS,PLAN-DIMENSIONS,ELEV-N-JOINERY,ELEV-S-GLAZINGand so on, with aPLAN-2-…set per storey when the plan has more than one. Turning off one view’s layers hides that view. - Elevations as clean linework. What the elevation drawing hides is not in the file at all — no rear wall sitting under the front one, nothing to dismantle before you can edit a line.
Surface hatches (the checkbox beside the buttons) adds wall poché and the
surface tints as solid hatches on each view’s HATCH layer. It is off by
default: without it the file is linework only.
Which of the three to pick
| Button | What it writes |
|---|---|
| DWG (AutoCAD 2018) | Every ticked page, DWG format AC1032. Opens in AutoCAD — checked in AutoCAD Web and the Autodesk Viewer. |
| DXF (2018) | The same drawing as an ASCII DXF, for software that prefers DXF. Larger file. |
| DXF R12 · plan only | The original export: the current floor’s plan alone, model space, millimetres, on layers WALLS, OPENINGS, OUTLINE, AREAS, DIMENSIONS and GRID. R12 is the oldest and widest-read flavour — reach for it when a tool refuses the 2018 files. |
A big drawing takes a moment to write; the button shows Building… then Writing DWG…, and Cancel stops it. A DWG that cannot be written is reported as an error — you never get a DXF in its place by accident.
What decides the contents
- The page list. Only the sheets you ticked are exported. Untick the schedules and you get plans and elevations alone.
- Layers. A layer with Print off stays out of the CAD file, exactly as it stays out of the PDF, and a hidden layer never exports.
- The plot window crops the sheet: the layout’s viewport frames the window you dragged, while model space keeps the whole plan. That is what a CAD user expects behind a viewport.
- Units. Coordinates are millimetres whatever the editor is displaying. On imperial units the dimension styles are set to architectural feet and inches.
What this doesn’t do
- Dimensions are not associated with the walls. They measure the right distance and sit in the right place, but they were baked at export: move a wall in your CAD and its dimension stays where it was.
- Symbols are not blocks. Doors, windows, furniture and pattern copies export as linework, not as insertable blocks.
- Schedules are text and ruled lines, not native CAD tables.
- No DWG or DXF import. The way in from another tool is still to trace an image of the drawing.
- No 3D. The DWG is 2D: plans, elevations, annotation and sheets.
Next
Exporting a PDF at true scale for the printable set, and layers for deciding what lands in either file.