AutoCAD Losing jpg images when saving as dxf?

[Coffee Coffee]

I am trying to make a DXF file for archiving purposes. This particular AutoCAD file has jpg files as external references.

I tried the "Save as" command which creates the DXF but as soon as I move the dxf into another location it loses the jpg images

Is there any way to create a dxf that will show the jpg images in the drawing without having to keep all of the jpg's and the dxf file together in one location?

And I apologize if this has been asked before. I tried searching but was having a hard time narrowing it down.

Thanks in Advance!

[cadtag]

short answer is no, it doesn't do that.

but that begs the question -- why try to use a .dxf as an archival file? it was developed as an interchange format, and that's about the extent of its usefulness. I _think_ that a nuber of dwg capabilities are going to be lost in dxf.

[Ed Jobe]

To add to what cadtag said, autodesk's policy is that any future changes in the dwg format will always be able to read all previous versions. It upgrades it to the current version as it opens it though. So saving to dxf is unnecessary.

[jaberwok]

... and AutoCAD does not understand any type of image file so they cannot be "bound" into a drawing (dwg\dwf\dxf) file.

[Jmurphy]

To add to what cadtag said, autodesk's policy is that any future changes in the dwg format will always be able to read all previous versions. It upgrades it to the current version as it opens it though. So saving to dxf is unnecessary.

To rebuttal the DXF format. (not that I would argue one way or the other)
But once you save the file to a dwg format you lock yourself into the AutoDesk software to open that file in the future. What happens if the OP management tells him to forget Autocad and start using CADXYZ or some other type of design system. To reopen one of the dwgs he would need either a dwg converter or still have a working version of AutoCAD.
Granted today there are a few others software packages that open a dwg but you never know what the future holds.

[irneb]

I am trying to make a DXF file for archiving purposes. This particular AutoCAD file has jpg files as external references.

I tried the "Save as" command which creates the DXF but as soon as I move the dxf into another location it loses the jpg images ...Apart from the "to DXF or not to DXF" the underlined phrases in your post is where the root of your problem lies. The DWG seems to adhere to a relative path for images (so if you move/copy the DWG together with its corresponding JPG it "works"). The DXF seems to have trouble, even though the relative path is saved inside the DXF it seems to still want to get at the file in the original spot - how this happens is a mistery, since even inside the DXF there's no link to that original file at all (just the relative path). Probably a "bug" in acad's DXF implementation.