Every now and then we find ourselves in a pinch for data. I don’t know how many times I have had nothing but a PDF to go on..

Well, it appears that a PDF is lot more useful than I first thought. Particular If it’s a vector PDF, you can usually tell if it is by zooming in and out on the PDF and you will see all the linework generate separately.

I won’t lie, I haven’t found a free tool to do this yet. But over at DOTSOFT Tools an application called PDF2DWG http://www.dotsoft.com/pdf2dwg.htm for 95 US sheets does get the job done very nicely.

I’ve actually bought the entire toolpac package that comes with PDF2DWG ($245), good value if you ask me. You can find the tool in the ribbon after installing, along with a host of other useful ones.

Select a PDF, even a multipage one

Lots of options here as well. Detect line weights, removing little raster images (particularly use for PDFS generated by GIS programs) and even the ability to convert image-based pdfs to linework (can’t verify how well this works though)

Hit process and voila! Massive time saver, that can pull you out of a “not enough data” situation very quickly.