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DXF viewer online

Explore DXF CAD drawings with layer toggles, color coding, grid overlay, and PNG export.

No watermarkFree & unlimited

Drop a .dxf file here or browse

DXF format (AutoCAD Drawing Exchange Format)

Supported entities

Lines Circles Arcs Polylines LW Polylines Vertices

DWG files require conversion to DXF format. Use AutoCAD, LibreCAD, or online converters.

Navigation

Drag to pan the view, scroll to zoom in/out. Double-click to fit all entities in view.

Layer control

Toggle individual layers on/off to isolate parts of the drawing. Each layer gets a unique color.

DWG vs DXF

DWG is a proprietary format. This viewer supports DXF (the open interchange format). Convert DWG to DXF using AutoCAD or online tools.

Export options

Take a screenshot as PNG or copy entity statistics to clipboard for documentation.

All processing happens in your browser. No data is sent to any server.

DXF is the open interchange format every CAD package can write, which makes it the practical way to look at a drawing when you do not own the software that produced it. This page reads the ENTITIES section of an ASCII DXF with its own group-code parser, collects LINE, CIRCLE, ARC, LWPOLYLINE and POLYLINE geometry, groups everything by its layer name, and draws the result on a 2D canvas. Each layer gets its own colour from a sixteen-colour palette and its own visibility switch, so you can isolate the dimensions from the geometry or turn off a hatch layer that hides everything underneath. DWG is not supported: it is a proprietary binary format, and the viewer says so rather than failing quietly.

Key facts about DXF viewer online

Key facts about DXF viewer online
Format readASCII DXF only. The file is read as text and walked as group-code and value pairs
DWGRejected with a clear message. DWG is a closed binary format — convert it to DXF in AutoCAD, LibreCAD, FreeCAD or any CAD tool with a DXF export first
Entities drawnLINE, CIRCLE, ARC, LWPOLYLINE and POLYLINE with its VERTEX records
Entities skippedTEXT, MTEXT, DIMENSION, HATCH, SPLINE, ELLIPSE, INSERT block references, SOLID and 3DFACE — they are counted as absent, not drawn
DimensionalityTwo-dimensional. Group codes 10, 20, 11, 21 are read; Z coordinates are ignored, so a 3D drawing appears as its plan projection
LayersTaken from group code 8 on each entity. Every distinct name gets a palette colour and a visibility toggle; entities with no layer fall into layer 0
Layer paletteSixteen colours assigned in order of appearance. Layer colours from the DXF LAYER table are not read
Entity statisticsA count per entity type and a total, copyable to the clipboard as plain text together with the file name and layer count
Layer searchFilter the layer list by name, then show all or hide all — useful on drawings with dozens of layers
Line stylesFour stroke widths: thin at 0.5 px, normal at 1, thick at 2, bold at 3
BackgroundsSix, including a blueprint blue and a white one for printing
ExportPNG screenshot of the canvas as displayed. There is no DXF, SVG or PDF export

What happens to your file

The drawing is read as text with the File API and parsed in this browser tab; the entity list and the canvas both live in page memory. Nothing is uploaded, so a client drawing, a part detail or a site plan is not copied to anyone else server in order to be looked at. The PNG screenshot is produced from the canvas locally and saved by your browser, and the entity statistics are copied to your own clipboard. Closing the tab disposes of everything — there is no cached copy and no account holding a file history.

About this tool

  1. 1

    Convert DWG to DXF if needed

    This viewer reads DXF. If you have a .dwg, export or save-as DXF from AutoCAD, BricsCAD, LibreCAD, FreeCAD or any CAD package — DXF is the format they all agree on.

  2. 2

    Drop the .dxf file

    Drag the file onto the page or browse for it. The ENTITIES section is parsed and a toast reports how many entities were found across how many layers.

  3. 3

    Fit and navigate

    Double-click to fit everything in view, drag to pan, scroll to zoom. Reset view returns to the starting framing at any time.

  4. 4

    Work the layer list

    Toggle layers off one at a time to find which one carries the geometry you care about, or hide all and re-enable just the two you need. Search the list by name when the drawing has dozens.

  5. 5

    Adjust line weight and background

    Thin lines suit a dense assembly drawing; bold suits a projector or a screenshot. The blueprint background is good for presentation, white for printing.

  6. 6

    Screenshot or copy the stats

    Export the canvas as PNG, or copy the entity breakdown by type to the clipboard for a report or a handover note.

Specs & compatibility
Accepted extension.dxf
DXF flavourASCII DXF, any version that writes the standard ENTITIES section
Binary DXFNot supported — the file is read as text
Geometry supportedLines, circles, arcs, lightweight polylines, classic polylines
NavigationDrag to pan, scroll to zoom, double-click to fit all entities, reset view
Layer controlPer-layer visibility, colour-by-layer toggle, search, show all, hide all
GridToggleable reference grid behind the drawing
ExportPNG screenshot, named after the source drawing
Browser supportCanvas 2D only — no WebGL, no plugin, no CAD install
Cost / accountFree, unlimited drawings, no signup
  • If the drawing looks empty, its geometry is probably made of splines, blocks or hatches rather than the line, arc, circle and polyline entities this parser reads.
  • Missing dimension text is expected: TEXT and DIMENSION entities are not drawn, so a drawing will show its geometry without any annotation.
  • Colour-by-layer is the fastest way to understand an unfamiliar drawing — each layer becomes visually distinct even when the original used one colour throughout.
  • Hide all, then re-enable layers one at a time, to work out what an unlabelled layer actually contains.
  • Exploding blocks in your CAD tool before exporting DXF turns INSERT references into real entities this viewer can draw.
  • Copy the entity statistics into a handover note to record exactly what was in a drawing at the time you received it.
  • A drawing that came from a 3D model shows only its plan projection here, because only X and Y coordinates are read.
  • ASCII DXF parsing in the browser
  • Per-layer visibility switches
  • Sixteen-colour layer palette
  • Layer name search
  • Entity counts by type
  • Pan, zoom and fit-to-view
  • Four line weights and six backgrounds
  • PNG screenshot export
  • Copy statistics to clipboard
  • Opening a DXF a supplier sent you without buying or installing CAD software.
  • Checking which layers a drawing contains before importing it into a laser or CNC workflow.
  • Confirming a drawing is the right revision before passing it on.
  • Producing a PNG of a drawing for an email, a quote or a work order.
  • Reviewing a client drawing without uploading proprietary geometry to a conversion site.
  • Counting the entities in a file to estimate how much work an import will be.
No, and it tells you so instead of failing silently. DWG is the proprietary binary format of AutoCAD, with no published specification, so reading it in a browser is not a matter of effort. DXF is the interchange format created for exactly this purpose and every CAD package writes it: in AutoCAD use Save As and pick DXF, and LibreCAD, BricsCAD, FreeCAD, QCAD and DraftSight all offer the same export. Convert once, then open the DXF here.
The parser reads five geometric entity types — LINE, CIRCLE, ARC, LWPOLYLINE and POLYLINE — and skips everything else. TEXT, MTEXT, DIMENSION, HATCH, SPLINE, ELLIPSE and INSERT block references are not drawn. For a typical mechanical or architectural drawing that means you see the geometry without annotations. Exploding blocks and converting splines to polylines before exporting the DXF recovers most of what is missing.
No. The .dxf is read as text by the browser File API and parsed in this tab; the entities and the canvas exist only in page memory. There is no upload endpoint, no server-side conversion and no stored copy, which is the reason to use a local viewer for drawings you do not own the rights to circulate. The PNG screenshot is generated from the canvas in the same tab and saved by your browser.
Every entity carries a layer name in group code 8. The parser collects the distinct names, assigns each one a colour from a sixteen-colour palette in order of appearance, and gives it a visibility switch. Turning a layer off removes its entities from the draw pass immediately. Colour-by-layer can be switched off if you prefer a single-colour drawing. Note that the colours come from the palette, not from the LAYER table in the file.
Only as a plan view. The parser reads the X and Y group codes — 10 and 20 for the first point, 11 and 21 for the second — and ignores Z entirely, so a three-dimensional drawing collapses onto the XY plane. That is usually fine for the 2D drawings DXF is most often used for, and misleading for a 3D model. For meshes, use an STL or OBJ viewer instead, which handles three dimensions properly.
No. The only export is a PNG screenshot of the canvas exactly as it appears, including the chosen background, grid and line weight, plus a clipboard copy of the entity statistics. Vector export would require re-emitting geometry the parser deliberately does not fully model, and a partial vector file is worse than an honest raster one. For a vector deliverable, export from the CAD package that produced the drawing.

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