For a recent book I copy edited, I needed to turn a set of AutoCAD DWG drawings into high-resolution TIFFs. I tried various tools for this, but most of them couldn’t handle the resolution necessary for printing (for some images it was necessary to get 600dpi, for example where the resultant image is to be cropped and blown up).

The best of the half-a-dozen tools I tried was Universal Document Converter, which installs as a printer driver. It costs $69 for businesses to buy (or $44.95 for home users). The important feature, taken from their website, is

  • save images to TIFF, JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF, PCX or DCX files with resolutions up to 1200 DPI.

Another advantage over some of the other programs that can only do DWG to TIF conversion is that you can now convert and document type to a TIFF as long as you can open it in a program that can print.

The other similar program I use a lot is Cute PDF Writer, which lets you print directly to PDF documents. I use the free version, but there is a commercial offering too with more bells and whistles.

Other than being a satisfied customer, I have no links to these companies. Hopefully you too will find that these tools save you some time and frustration.