Corel X3 X4 importing DXF issues

[Tony Lenkic]

Yes Chris ir right, My customer uses WMFOUT in ACAD.

[Ralph Undis]

Exporting WMF in AutoCAD - it prompts for filename - then asks you what you want to export. You have to select the items you want to export, or select ALL. I have never had any luck with WMF, but I do not use Corel. It mangles things up for me if I put into Illustrator.

[Ralph Undis]

I don't see an option for WMF export in free NanoCAD v5. I also have a copy of the newest beta version (of the pay version), and don't see it.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I believe that the majority of your problem is the missing fonts that you don't have on your system. When Corel does the font substitution, it picks something close which may or may not have the same letter width and spacing, hence the justification being off. I'm pretty sure that if you were to track down the couple of fonts that you're missing and install them on your machine, the files would all import correctly after that. Not familiar with AutoCad, but if they could do something to convert the text to "Curves" before they export them, so they are imported on your end as curves and not actual text, that would also alleviate the issue as Corel would just be dealing with the curves of the letters and not actual text.

I'm with Steve on this. For test purposes, see if your customer can send a test file using Courier or another common font you both have installed on your machines. Perhaps have them install the hairline font if they can?

[Kev Williams]

Personally, I don't think it's fonts, for a couple of reasons. First being, in many jobs I import I do have all the fonts, doesn't seem to make a difference. Second, I make my own substitutions rather than let Corel do it, and for the most part Corel has my sub fonts saved. And as for the invisible text in the frames, I've tried substituting Browalia New, which is about 50% the height of the entered point size, and IT doesn't show up most times either, even tho it easily fits in the frames...

And finally, after messing around with saving to different versions, I found out that saving the DXF in different versions gives me different results-

Here's a print I'm working on, I opened it in NanoCAD, then saved it as a version 2004 DXF,
then opened it in Corel, changed the font to 'my' font,
this is the results:
v2004.jpg
-- notice all the text frames, and the gobbledygook lettering on the right. This is one of the BETTER inputs, only 3 frames are invisible...

Here I did everything exactly the same EXCEPT I saved it as a version A11 DXF, the oldest version on the list-
check this out:
va11.jpg
I swear I didn't touch it! Not a text frame anywhere, text, the whole text, and nothing but the text!

SO- all my little brain can extrapolate from this is that the problem is a combination of issues between both Corel and Autocad files, and how they're interpreted by each program.

I've done this with several files, it's worked every time, so I'm happy! I'm still curious about WMF files. In the meantime, I'll have my customers save their files as A11 for me, and hope it works...

[Ralph Undis]

Most likely, the version(s) of Corel that you are using to import DXF/DWG only support(s) older formats. Corel (like almost all drawing/CAD programs) get their code for converting DXF/DWG from:

https://www.opendesign.com

They have been reverse engineering the DXF/DWG code for about 20 years. It's possible that newer versions of Corel might support updated code from the Open Design Alliance. In my past experience, I allways used R12 DXF, but I did notice that NanoCAD v5 goes back to R11, but not 12. The free NanoCAD is pretty decent, even though it is a few versions back.

Ralph

[Kev Williams]

Far as I can tell version 2007 is the newest acad that X4 will open, and 2004 the newest X3 will open. Pretty sure I have my customers trained to send me 2004 files

One of my customers just converts their DXF's to PDF's and they work wonderfully, BUT they don't come in actual size, and we can't figure out why- but no problem resizing. Yet another customer sends me PDF's of their cad prints and all text is intact but anything vector whatsover that's not a straight line is a jagged, ratty mess. No one has a clue why that is either.

All I know is, for the time being R11 (not A11, brain is tired) works for me and I just hope it continues!