Hello,
we use CorelDraw X5 to make cartographies on building plans with several layers of - mostly - polylines drawings (one layer = one building material type or one weathering form type) and we must give them back to architects who use AutoCAD.
We already tried several times to export the .cdr to .dxf or .dwg files, but till now, the architect seems to be able to open the files, but our cartographie is quite illegible: only some parts of the layers are visible and it seems that some layers are not visible at all...
Does someone can first tell me if the exportation .cdr to .dxf/.dwg is really possible?
If it's possible, does someone can explain me how to exactly do? (the help doesn't help me at all till now...)
Thanks,
Bénédicte
Have you tried importing the DXF/DWG file back into an empty new CorelDraw document to see if you see the same as your recipient? Or the free DWG TrueView viewer.
DXF/DWG seem to be very limited in their capability and the mention of "unmapped colours" in the export dialogue sounds a warning alarm that a complete conversion may not always be possible.
My quick test (in X4, so may not be completely the same for you) is certainly showing some unexpected conversions. For instance, my yellow filled object with a black outline is re-importing as an unfilled object with a yellow outline of changed thickness.
Best suggestion I can make is to experiment with different colours and see which get through unscathed, and try to limit your design to those colours.
Also, since you are using layers, check the layers all have display/print flags.
Thank you for your reply and the tests you did.
Yes, we already test these things. We even tried first with very simple files with only two or three layers and we remarked the same as you: some of the shapes changed, some not. And we also checked the print state of each layers before to export.
I learned some things: for ex. the result we obtain by making an exportation is much better than the result you can have with just "save as" .dxf or .dwg. Or I also remarked that the created .dxf or .dwg file must be in exactly the same directory as the original .cdr file... And the more layers we have before to export, the worst is the result.
We thought to give up the .dxf or .dwg because we obtain a perfect result by exporting in .pdf: all the layers are there, with good shape, good colours. But the architect is not able to reimport our .pdf files in AutoCAD... argh...