Drawing Software

[AndrewEH1]

I need to draw up a few plans and need to be able to download PDFs for printing etc.

Looked at Sketchup but only the Pro version allows PDFs and a licence is $695...

Any other free/cheap options out there?

[singlecoil]

Do a print screen and load the image into Sketchup, then scale it to a measurement on the PDF. PDFs aren't CAD files anyway, so in effect that it what will happen in any software although there might be something that would redraw it as a CAD file . I expect that would be pretty expensive if it was available.

[singlecoil]

Just realised I might have misunderstood. Do you mean you need to output PDFs?

If so then you can do that in Sketchup by downloading the latest version which gives you 30 days free trial of Pro.

[AndrewEH1]

Maybe OP was a little unclear

I need to draw some building plans then print them out in A2 size so they can be submitted to the local council planning department, therefore need to be able to export the plans as PDFs. No?

[AndrewEH1]

singlecoil said:

If so then you can do that in Sketchup by downloading the latest version which gives you 30 days free trial of Pro.

I'm wanting something a little more longer term then 30 days as it's for a big conversion that will require a fair amount of thought/design changes and I can't work on it 24/7!

[shtu]

CutePDF will output PDF files from any application you have, it installs itself as a print driver on the system.

[AndrewEH1]

shtu said:

CutePDF will output PDF files from any application you have, it installs itself as a print driver on the system.

I'll have to give that a try with SketchUp Make

[singlecoil]

AndrewEH1 said:

Maybe OP was a little unclear

I need to draw some building plans then print them out in A2 size so they can be submitted to the local council planning department, therefore need to be able to export the plans as PDFs. No?

If you are printing them out anyway, then Sketchup Make can do that as is, no need for PDF.

[AndrewEH1]

singlecoil said:

If you are printing them out anyway, then Sketchup Make can do that as is, no need for PDF.

But I don't have an A2 printer, was going to save to PDFs then get them printed at a local printing shop.

[singlecoil]

AndrewEH1 said:

singlecoil said:

If you are printing them out anyway, then Sketchup Make can do that as is, no need for PDF.

But I don't have an A2 printer, was going to save to PDFs then get them printed at a local printing shop.

Sketchup Make can export in a number of image formats though the issue might be getting a high enough resolution for A2. You could always try having a .png printed at A2 and see whether it looked good enough. If it does, then problem solved.

[tivver500]

If you like AutoCAD then download 'Fusion 360' and you can get a free license for a year (then renew it every year ).
Worth a look.....

[Ean218]

tivver500 said:

If you like AutoCAD then download 'Fusion 360' and you can get a free license for a year (then renew it every year ).
Worth a look.....

Or Draftsight which is very similar to Autocad yet also free.

[marcg]

You can use Sketchup for free but the only way you will turn that into A2 scale drawings is with Layout (the bit that makes you pay). There are work arounds involving printing with scale-bars and resizing in other programs but it's seriously hard work.

SU is very easy to use and I value it so would pay for it. Depends what you want to draw. If it's just lines then find a free autocad clone somewhere.

[theguvernor15]

OP i use CAD daily for work, all be it for commercial kitchen planning.
I can potentially put a drawing together for you if it's simplistic.
Could post you a few copies as well for beer tokens.
It depends how involved it is though obviously

I don't have PM function on here as it goes to some other email address i don't have a password for anymore, so i can potentially PM you if needed.

[hutchst]

I use something called PDFill

It installs as a printer and you can print anything to pdf. You can also edit and annotate existing pdf files. I've had it for years, I think it cost me $20 when I bought the license. It will do what you need for not much money.

www.pdfill.com