by R. Kamalathasan, Assistant Manager (Projects), The Magnum Group

When you do a paper to CAD conversion, the input document is often a scanned paper print (also known as a “raster image file”). It is usually in TIFF, JPEG, BMP or PDF format.

You will usually attach the raster image file to a new AutoCAD drawing and start tracing over it. You may sometimes get frustrated if the raster image file is too large: panning, for instance, takes an extended period of time because of the large size of the raster image file.

So what’s a solution to make it easy to work in AutoCAD when raster image files are attached?

The best way is to convert the raster image file to PNG format and then insert it into AutoCAD!

Photoshop will help you to convert the raster image files from any format to PNG. If you don’t have Photoshop there are some free programs that do the job. You can easily find one by Googling.

You will definitely have a better AutoCAD working experience with PNG files since they are smaller and have transparent backgrounds.

Hope this helps!

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