I know there are plenty of posts out there asking about PDF to .DWG conversion, but I haven't found any discussions / or polls out there comparing the options available. Before choosing / paying for one, I want to post this note, and a poll and try to figure out which option is best for my needs.
I was hoping to tap the community for a suggestion for a PDF to AutoCAD conversion solution. I've found quite a slew of options on the net, and would love to know if anybody has any first hand experience and can recommend for or against any of these.
http://www.pdf2cad.com/
http://www.cadkas.de/downengpdf11.php
http://www.autodwg.com/pdf-to-dwg-converter/
http://www.dotsoft.com/pdfconvert.htm
http://anydwg.com/pdf-to-dxf.html
http://www.aidecad.com/?gclid=CObhxp...FQpoSAod3iA5NA
In addition to all these tool, I know there are also ways to convert to DXF files with Adobe Illustrator (a product I don’t own), and maybe just ghostscript?
I'm not trying to steal engineering data when a company intentionally provides data as a PDF instead of more easily manipulated CAD data, but rather there are numerous scenarios I've encountered in my short time in the engineering industry, where the original CAD data would gladly be provided, but the only thing that's easily found is a PDF and CAD data is lost on a CD or file that’s gone missing somewhere, or the CAD program used was ancient and compatible with nothing… etc. etc. Rather than making other people work and dig around, I'd like to be able to work more directly and easily with PDFs that are given to me (obviously not scanned PDFs, but rather those printed from CAD files).
Are there any tools that can convert pdfs back to .dwg format and preserve any layer data? Perhaps preserve text as text? Certainly those features would be preferable, but any recommendation for tools you are happy with would be much appreciated, or warnings (i.e. stay away from product A because of reasons x, y, and z.)
Thanks in advance,
Ethan in San Diego, CA