good morning. i have just come accross Inkscape, and think it's great!
I work for an engineering company in north wales which has a laser marking machine which can support either .DXF files or .PLT files. other companies ask us to print their logo on products. usually i trace over it in autocad, but sometimes this can be a bit of a ball ache!
is there a free extension available to save as either of these types. i have looked on the internet, but to no avail.
the trace bitmap feature will save me loads of time. any suggestions appreciated.

You can save as to dxf in 0.47. It works with AutoCAD 2010 and Inventor 2010 for me. Regarding plt files, I remember several years ago I installed an hpgl printer in Windows that allowed me to print to plt. Just install a new printer, choose, HP, HPGL/2 plotter. Finally, they do make dwg, dxf, and plt printer drivers. Not sure if any are free though.

In 0.46 I have a DXF option called 'Desktop Cutting Plotter *.DXF', maybe you can use that?

I think I remember from the old (but good!) 2D-CAD days that the plotter drivers allowed plotting to file. Maybe you can find an HP plotter driver that you can use.

regards

JimR

I sometimes use inkscape to convert office plans from PDF to DXF but our office design software only recognises the older format DXF R12 and I found a great extension http://mydxf.blogspot.com/2008/11/inkscape-r12-dxf.html which adds an option save as DXF R12 to inkscape sometimes I find I have to flip my selection before saving in order for it to come out the right way lol but hey it works.

It may be of help to you.

fireclown wrote:I sometimes use inkscape to convert office plans from PDF to DXF but our office design software only recognises the older format DXF R12 and I found a great extension http://mydxf.blogspot.com/2008/11/inkscape-r12-dxf.html which adds an option save as DXF R12 to inkscape sometimes I find I have to flip my selection before saving in order for it to come out the right way lol but hey it works.

Just be careful if you install this extension into the shared extension folder of a fresh installed Inkscape 0.47: you will overwrite a current file (simpletransform.py) with an older, modified version which possibly could break other extensions that are distributed with Inkscape. Better to ask the author for an updated version for Inkscape 0.47.

crystaloscillator wrote:good morning. i have just come accross Inkscape, and think it's great!
I work for an engineering company in north wales which has a laser marking machine which can support either .DXF files or .PLT files. other companies ask us to print their logo on products. usually i trace over it in autocad, but sometimes this can be a bit of a ball ache!
is there a free extension available to save as either of these types. i have looked on the internet, but to no avail.
the trace bitmap feature will save me loads of time. any suggestions appreciated.

Hi
Does you found any solution? Is there any free source code for edit .dxf or .plt file?

Thanks

Mahendra wrote:Does you found any solution? Is there any free source code for edit .dxf or .plt file?

Well, if you are looking for something more CAD related then you can use the free DraftSight software (http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/ ... -software/). It also can export to svg if you need to get it back into Inkscape.