Autodesk Design Review

Autodesk® Design Review is a free program used for creating and reviewing DWF files. An
open, published, and secure file format developed by Autodesk, DWF enables you to
combine and publish rich 2D- and 3D-design data and share it with others.

Design Review enables your entire project or product team to view, print, measure, and
markup DWF, DWG, DXF, PDF and raster files containing 2D and 3D content. Fully
integrated with AutoCAD®, Inventor®, and Revit®, Design Review helps you easily share
drawings, models, maps, and design data with team members, clients, consultants,
contractors, partners, suppliers, and other reviewers who may not own or know how to use
design software.

You can share designs for use with Design Review by email, websites, intranets, and
physical media, such as DVDs.

About DWF and DWFx

A DWF file can be used to organize sheet sets, models, animations, finite element analyses
(FEA), and map information, as well as other project-related files, into a single, highly
compressed file. Together with Design Review, DWF files help you enhance collaboration by
clearly communicating information, such as design changes or corrections, all while reducing
the printing and shipping costs associated with distributing paper copies to your extended
team.

Much like Adobe® PDF files, DWF files are no more alterable than printed paper copies.
Unlike PDF files, however, DWF files retain detailed design information and scale, and are
therefore more suitable for architects, engineers, and designers.

A Digital Design Workflow

Most DWF files begin as a drawing or model created in such Autodesk programs as
AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit. Before a DWF file is published, the person publishing the
DWF file determines which features (model, layouts, layers, blocks, named views, and so
on) are included in the published DWF file. Once the content has been determined, the
designer publishes the file from its original format to a DWF file and sends the DWF file to
the review team to begin the digital design review process.

 Receive. Reviewers get the DWF file from the publisher and open it in Design Review to verify 
the content (a 2D drawing, 3D model, or image).  
 Review. Reviewers add digital comments and markup to the DWF file using callouts, text, 
shapes, dimensions, stamps, and custom symbols, saving changes to the DWF file.  
 Return. Reviewers send the marked‐up DWF file back to the original publisher.  
 Revise. The designer uses the publishing software to import the marked‐up DWF file, referring 
to comments in context to revise the original design quickly.  
 Republish. After revising the original content in the publishing software, the designer 
republishes an updated DWF file, a new sheet set, or model, to begin the digital design workflow 
again.  

 
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Autodesk® Design Review 2012

Questions and Answers

1. What is Autodesk Design Review?
Autodesk® Design Review software helps save time and money with easy-to-use
tools that enable team members to review, mark up, and revise designs and 3D
models. This free* software is tightly integrated with all Autodesk ® design
software products and enables project teams to move to a two-way design
review process to help save time in their markup and approval processes.
Specific timesaving functionality includes:
 Measure, markup, and annotation tools.
 DWF™ file viewing, plotting, and publishing.
 Ability to quickly find and locate design information within a DWF file.
 Ability to combine project data such as images and specifications in a
single file.
 Powerful status tracking to manage engineering change orders.
 Round-trip markup integration with Autodesk design software products,
so designers can overlay changes and comments on the original CAD
file.

2. What’s new in Autodesk Design Review 2012?

The following features have been added or enhanced in this release.
 Auto Recovery. You can now recover your work if Design Review closes
unexpectedly.
 Enhanced custom workspace management. Custom workspaces now
retain more view settings, markup formatting settings, as well as
changes made to the ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar. You can also
share your custom workspaces with your team and clients.
 Paste image onto a 2D sheet. You can now copy an image to the
®
Windows clipboard and paste it directly onto a 2D sheet, making it
easier to include images as markups and in symbol catalogs.
 Create symbol catalogs from selected objects. Select any objects on the
canvas, including pasted images, and turn them into a new custom
symbol catalog.
 More custom symbol catalog management options. Besides being able
to delete catalogs, you can now rename, import, and export custom
symbol catalogs so they can be shared with your team and clients.
 Share your Design Review settings. You have complete control over
your Design Review options. You can now export and import Options
and application button settings.
 Additional scaling options when printing. In previous versions of Design
Review, when printing a sheet you could only scale it as a percentage
relative to the published sheet size. New to this release, you can choose
real-world scaling values or enter your own custom scale.
 Set a custom scale for any DWF sheet. You can now change the scale
of a drawing, even if the scale was set by the authoring application.

www.autodesk.com/designreview
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AUTODESK DESIGN REVIEW 2012 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

 One-click access to useful resources. Use the Resources tab to view

resources on the web related to Design Review, such as the discussion
group, videos, and blog.

3. Can I share Autodesk Design Review with others or deploy it across a network?
Yes. Autodesk allows you to redistribute Autodesk Design Review software,
subject to the terms and conditions of the end-user license agreement that
accompanies the download of the software. You can use this graphic

and link to http://www.autodesk.com/designreview-download.

Or deploy the software silently across a network using this script:
MsiExec.exe /qn /i SetupDesignReview2012.msi

4. Does Autodesk Design Review support DWG or DXF files?

DWG TrueView™ software, a stand-alone Autodesk DWG viewing software, is
available to download free* and enables users to work with DWG™ and DXF™
files, just as they would in AutoCAD® software. DWG TrueView is built on the
same viewing engine as AutoCAD software, so users can view the latest DWG or
DXF files with full fidelity. After converting DWG files to DWF format through the
application’s Publish command, users can take advantage of powerful measure
and markup capabilities, sheet set organization, and status tracking in Autodesk
Design Review. Although other viewers may support viewing of DWG files, none
is built on AutoCAD technology. Note that on 64-bit operating systems, you must
use DWG TrueView to view DWG files.

5. What is the Autodesk DWF Writer?

®
Download the free* Autodesk DWF™ Writer software to enable users to publish
to DWF format from CAD applications that do not offer built-in DWF publishing,
such as Bentley’s MicroStation®, or Dassault’s CATIA® or SolidWorks® software.
Autodesk DWF Writer is a certified Windows system printer driver that enables
users to quickly and easily convert files to DWF format. Simply create a DWF file
by selecting Autodesk DWF Writer from the printer drop-down menu in any
Windows application. The result is that the entire project team can standardize
on a common file format to exchange and review designs and sheet sets, at no
additional cost.

6. Which AutoCAD products integrate with Autodesk Design Review?

Autodesk Design Review integrates with most Autodesk 2012 design
applications, including AutoCAD, Revit®, Autodesk® Inventor®, and AutoCAD®
Map 3D products. See a complete listing of Autodesk design applications.

7. Does Autodesk Design Review support integration of markups into older

versions of AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor software?
The integrated markup capabilities of Autodesk Design Review and AutoCAD
software work with the 2005 and more recent versions of the AutoCAD, Revit,
and Inventor family of products and are part of the enhanced sharing capabilities
of AutoCAD software.

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AUTODESK DESIGN REVIEW 2012 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

8. How can I find technical support information for Autodesk Design Review?
The Autodesk Design Review product center is a great source of answers to your
support questions.
Autodesk Design Review software has a built-in help system that contains a
wealth of information about using the software. To access this information,
choose Help from the Home tab in the ribbon.
Visit the online knowledge base to read common support questions. Also, you can
ask questions and read about Autodesk products in the peer-to-peer discussion
group. Autodesk hosts topical discussion groups about specific products,
including Autodesk Design Review, and about general topics, such as drafting
techniques. The Beyond the Paper blog also features the most current information
about Autodesk Design Review.

9. What language versions of Autodesk Design Review 2012 are available?

Autodesk Design Review 2012 is available in American English, French, Italian,
German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese.

Autodesk, AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, DWF, DWG, DWG TrueView, DXF, Inventor, and Revit are registered
trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other
countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk
reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice,
and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

© 2011 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Autodesk® DWG TrueView™ 
 
You can view .dwg files with Autodesk® DWG TrueView™ software, a stand-alone .dwg viewer with
DWG TrueConvert™ software included. Built on the same viewing engine as AutoCAD® software,
DWG TrueView enables you to view .dwg and DXF™ files, just as you would in AutoCAD. By
installing the Autodesk® Design Review software, you can then open .dwg files as well as view, print
and track changes to Autodesk 2D and 3D design files without the original design software.
Beginning with the 2010 release, AutoCAD-based products enable users to output to Portable
Document Format (PDF files) within the application. DWG to PDF conversion has never been easier.

 
 
Autodesk DWF Writer 4 
 
DWF publishing helps you enhance collaboration and easily exchange project information with
extended teams. Download Autodesk® DWF™ Writer to securely share 2D and 3D data as DWF
files—no matter what design application you’re using.

 Built-In 2D and 3D publishing—Publish 2D or 3D designs automatically with built-in DWF

publishing from many of the Autodesk design applications.
 Publish rich design information—Select the preferred 32-bit Autodesk® DWF™ Writer
plug-in—SolidWorks® 2006, CATIA® (V5), or Pro/ENGINEER® Wildfire™ 2.0—to publish
3D models including intelligent design information.
 Publish from Microsoft applications—A Microsoft® Windows® system printer driver, DWF
Writer allows you to publish easily and directly from Microsoft applications, including
PowerPoint®, Word, Excel®, Visio® and Project applications.

 
Frequently Asked Questions  
1. How do I convert files to DWF format?

If you’re using any Autodesk design application; AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Inventor, for
example, you can create DWF files directly from the built-in Publish command. Instructions on how
to publish to DWF are available in the respective product’s Help, as well as online on our publishing
page.

2. Can I give Autodesk DWF Writer to others?

Yes. You can redistribute Autodesk DWF Writer to anyone without prior approval from Autodesk,
subject to the terms of the license agreement.

3. What Autodesk software publishes DWF files?

You can publish DWF files from Autodesk applications starting with AutoCAD 2002, or from 3rd party
applications using the free Autodesk DWF Writer. Instructions on how to publish DWF files is
available in the DWF Writer Help.

4. What applications publish 3D DWF files?

Autodesk 3D applications publish 3D DWF files, beginning with the AutoCAD 2006 releases. You
also can create 3D DWF files using the free Autodesk DWF Writer (32-bit). Note that the 64-bit
Autodesk DWF Writer only publishes 2D DWF files, and does not publish 3D DWF files at this time.

5. How do I publish to DWF from non-Autodesk design applications?

Now, no matter what design application you’re using, you can efficiently share your 2D and 3D data
by using the free* downloadable Autodesk® DWF™ Writer.
6. How do I change the 2D DWF settings for DWF Writer?

Display the printer control panel. Right-click Autodesk DWF Writer, and choose Properties. Click
Printing Preferences to customize the DWF paper size, resolution, file location, and other DWF
output settings. Click Help for tips on publishing DWF files using this Windows printer driver.

7. Does Autodesk DWF Writer work on 64-bit operating systems?

Yes. Download the 64-bit version of Autodesk DWF Writer for 2D for these Windows operating
systems:

 Microsoft® Windows® 7 (Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, Home Premium)  
 Microsoft® Windows® Vista® (Enterprise, Business, Ultimate [SP1 or later])  
 Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional (SP2 or later)