To anyone considering a CAD program or download:
There is nothing particularly unique about AutoCad® vs other 2-D cad
programs (although AutoCad is a powerful program), except that Autocad has
had its own drawing file format called .dwg and in the past not all Cad
programs could draw or export in .dwg format. Even AutoCad changed its
.dwg file format from one version to another (a transparent ploy to force
upgrades - Bloody B*****DS!) To allow cross reading of Cad files we
convert drawing files to the .dxf file format and almost every cad program
will now do thatl. There is a small downside in that sometimes all the
detail information or imagery doesn't get translated but that has rarely
been a problem in my experience. I use Autocad but as several people have
mentioned there are a number of very good freeware Cad programs out there
and all of them should translate .dxf so they should be able to read an
AutoCad file as long as they're converted. The latest versions of Autocad
will convert files directly to .bmp.
Cheers,
Harry
