# DXF Viewer

> Loft DXF Viewer is a free online DXF (.dxf) file viewer that opens 2D engineering drawings in your browser without any upload, install, or signup. It parses the AutoCAD DXF interchange format — LINE, ARC, CIRCLE, LWPOLYLINE, POLYLINE, SPLINE, and ELLIPSE entities — and renders them as scalable SVG with pan and zoom, a fit-to-viewport button, and PNG screenshot export. Opens DXF files exported from AutoCAD, LibreCAD, QCAD, and any other CAD tool that supports the format. Files never leave your device.


Live tool: https://lofttools.com/tools/open-tools/dxf-viewer

Category: Open Anything


## What it does

- LINE, CIRCLE, ARC, LWPOLYLINE, POLYLINE, SPLINE, ELLIPSE rendering as SVG
- Pan (drag) + zoom (scroll wheel) + fit-to-view
- PNG screenshot export
- Files never leave the browser
- Status footer surfaces entity count, layer count, and skipped entity types
- Drag-drop or file-picker input
- Works with both ASCII and binary DXF (auto-detected by dxf-parser)

## How it works

1. **Drop your DXF** — Drag a .dxf file into the browser, or click Open. Parsing happens on your device — nothing uploads.
2. **Pan and zoom** — Drag to pan, scroll to zoom. Click Fit to frame the entire drawing.
3. **Screenshot** — Hit Screenshot to capture the active layer composition as a PNG.

## FAQ

### What DXF entities does this support?

LINE, CIRCLE, ARC, LWPOLYLINE, POLYLINE, SPLINE, and ELLIPSE in v0.1. SPLINE renders via fit or control points (straight-line approximation). TEXT, MTEXT, BLOCK insertion, and HATCH are skipped — the status footer reports how many entities were skipped per type.

### ASCII or binary DXF?

Both — dxf-parser auto-detects.

### What's not supported?

TEXT and MTEXT (no font rendering), HATCH (no fill patterns), BLOCK insertion expansion (block reference not expanded), 3DFACE / MESH (3D entities, rare in 2D DXF). On the roadmap.

### Will my file leave the browser?

No. dxf-parser is a pure-JS library and runs entirely on your device.

### What about DWG?

DWG has no permissive parser — every open-source DWG library is GPL-licensed. Convert to DXF in AutoCAD / LibreCAD / QCAD first.

## Tips

- **Toggle layers in the panel** — DXF layers map straight into the layer panel — show/hide each one to inspect drawing complexity without exporting variants.
- **PNG snapshot for slide decks** — Camera icon saves the current view. Pick resolution and background to match your deck or doc theme.
- **AutoCAD without AutoCAD** — Open client DXF files in the browser. No license, no install, no upload — works on Mac, Windows, Linux, and mobile.

## How Loft DXF Viewer compares

| Tool | Install needed | Files uploaded | LINE / ARC / CIRCLE | Polylines | Cost |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Loft DXF Viewer | No | No (in-browser) | Yes | Yes | Free |
| AutoCAD viewer (web) | No | Yes (server upload) | Yes | Yes | Free |
| LibreCAD | Yes (desktop) | N/A | Yes | Yes | Free |
| QCAD | Yes (desktop) | N/A | Yes | Yes | Free |
| DraftSight | Yes (desktop) | N/A | Yes | Yes | Free (basic) |
| sharecad.org | No | Yes (server upload) | Yes | Yes | Free |

_Verified 2026-05. Most online DXF viewers upload to a server. Loft renders entirely in your tab.
_

## Privacy — what we do not do

This tool runs entirely in the browser via WebAssembly. Your file never reaches a Loft Tools server. Specifically:

- **No upload.** The file bytes load into the browser tab's memory and process on your own CPU. Open DevTools → Network and observe zero outbound requests carrying file data while DXF Viewer runs.
- **No AI training on your file.** Loft does not train models. We could not train on a file we cannot see.
- **No content scanning.** No virus, copyright, or content-moderation pass against your file. The bytes are not accessible to us.
- **No server-side log of file contents, filenames, or EXIF metadata.** Cloudflare edge captures URL and truncated IP for abuse defense (standard CDN behaviour). Cloudflare Web Analytics records anonymous page hits, no cookies, no PII. Nothing about your file content reaches any log.
- **No retention.** Close the tab and the file leaves browser memory. No backups exist on our side because no copy ever existed on our side.
- **No account.** No email, no signup, no auth, no telemetry tied to you.
- **Offline-capable after first visit** (PWA). Once you've loaded a tool, it caches; later sessions work without internet. For high-sensitivity files, run the tool once online to warm the cache, then disconnect before processing.

Compare with upload-based services: each transmits your file to a processing server. Even over HTTPS, each has logs, retention windows, and subpoena exposure. Loft has none of these because the server architecture does not include your file.

## More

- All tools: https://lofttools.com/tools
- Category: https://lofttools.com/tools/open-tools
- LLM index: https://lofttools.com/llms.txt