AutoCAD Engineering Complex is one of the most advanced tools for designing and solving much more complex problems. However, sometimes it becomes necessary that you want to transfer the drawing from AutoCAD to Word or any other application. How to do it? Most ordinary users for some reason consider this program to be something from the field of such complex software that it is simply impossible to understand. Meanwhile, let's take a closer look at AutoCAD. For "dummies" there are many tips and ready-made solutions with which they can carry out the described export operations. But first things first.
How to insert a drawing into "Word" from "AutoCAD": main directions
In general, this software product in the sense of interacting with other applications or transferring content to third-party programs does not differ much from most existing packages. All decisions come down to either copying or exporting and then embedding in Word the content copied to the clipboard or saved as separate files.
Another thing is that in order to solve the problem of how to insert a drawing into Word, from AutoCAD, you can use several standard and non-standard methods. All the main methods are based on direct copying of the drawing with subsequent insertion into a text editor with the choice of its type or saving objects as separate files.
How to reduce the drawing in AutoCAD and save the contents?
But first, consider a few basic concepts, without which all further actions may turn out to be futile.
The main problem itself is that the desired drawing may have dimensions that exceed the allowable in Word, since the engineering package was originally designed to create large-format images in several sheets of A1 format.
And the question of how to reduce the drawing in "AutoCAD" implies the creation of a base point with subsequent scaling attached to it. Such operations can be performed through the Modify menu with the selection of an object upon request (Select Object), after which a request to create a base point (Specify Base Point) will appear. Only then can you enter the required zoom factor directly from the keyboard. Actually, the question of how to save a drawing in AutoCAD is solved by the most standard method with the choice of saving either a complete document or determining whether to export the entire drawing or its fragment to a graphic file. But these problems we are not particularly interested in.
Word Link
Copying a drawing as a graphic image or another format is not the most important thing. The problem is how to insert a drawing from AutoCAD into Word (meaning in which form).
And there can be three options, each of which includes several basic ways of performing such actions:
- direct copy and paste;
- Content export
- print to file.
Consider all three groups with their intermediate and additional solutions. In summing up, let's try to figure out which insertion method is most preferable.
Paste and Copy Group
And let's start with the simplest. How to copy a drawing from AutoCAD to Word? And as usual! Select the object and use the context menu that is called via RMB with activation of the copy line to the clipboard. To simplify things, just use the combination Ctrl + C.
Now, as for the insertion options with the possibility or impossibility of further editing or saving the drawing in its original form. Options after copying are as follows:
- regular insertion in Word (Ctrl + V) - the background of the picture matches the background set in Word, when you double-click AutoCAD opens with the ability to edit, but in a text editor you have to crop the drawing, circles can be displayed in the form of ellipses;
- using a special insert with the selection of an AutoCAD Drawing object - a method similar to the previous one;
- special insertion, but using object binding, is another method similar to those described;
- placement on the “Sheet” - the drawing is displayed on a gray background, but you can edit it;
- regular insertion of the image as a metafile - lines with a weight of less than 0.3 are displayed thin;
- insert a metafile with a binding - an analog of the previous method for choosing the type of AutoCAD object
- insert a bitmap without the possibility of editing in the main program - the background of the image corresponds to the background of the model, you can change the size (but only in Word).
Export group
As for these solutions, all of them are initially based on the use of the export item in the main application, after which you can choose the following options (though it will be impossible to change the source object in the main program)
- save metafile and paste in Word;
- saving an EPS format object (Encapsulated PS);
- save the BMP bitmap.
Despite some of the drawbacks of such a technique, exported objects are saved as separate files, with which you can perform the simplest actions in any primitive graphical editor.
Print group to file
In this group of actions, it is worth noting that it is, again, about saving the drawing or its fragment as a separate file, but with the choice of a virtual printer.
You can save the image in both graphic formats and in PDF format. It is clear that the inserted or exported picture cannot be changed in AutoCAD, but in this image the dimensions of all lines will be respected, and the background will be transparent.
Which way is better?
These are the main export opportunities in the AutoCAD program. For "dummies" it should already be clear that this package, like many others, supports standard copy and paste operations, so there should be no problem with this. The main question here is completely different: which of the above solutions is best used?
It follows from the problems themselves. If you need to edit the drawing after insertion (do not resize or perform some similar actions, but replace or change the elements of the original), the use of special inserts is not even discussed.
Another thing is when the user only needs a picture to paste (saved as a separate file, or imported from the original program, it does not matter). Here is a choice of the second or third method.
It remains to reassure all those users who consider the AutoCAD software package almost aerobatics that elementary things like questions about how to insert a drawing into the Word from AutoCAD can be solved quite simply even without special knowledge and skills in working with the main program. It is more important to know what to do exactly in Word, since from AutoCAD exporting the contents of a drawing is not a problem at all by any of the methods described.