In Draftsight, why do the layers not transfer into the PDF? How would you go about this to make the layers appear?

Guess they haven't caught up with AutoCAD.  What do you expect afterall it is a free program and they can only include so much functionality.  Maybe that's why they have a version for sale.

If you are a student you can download for free the latest version of any number of AutoDesk programs including AutoCAD 2014.  You do know that don't you?

I do,I just have not made the time to look and download them. I appreciate the thought. But the other programs allow files to carry over to PDF. Because right now, my company is just exporting them to illustrator then to PDF.

I cannot speak to why dessault did not include the capability.Does everyone who uses CAD in your company run Draftsight?

For the most part yes,  it is because it gets the job done. But for engineering machine parts we can only do in 2D. Making the job a little more difficult, but we just draw different views. They use Draftsight because it is free. Do you recommend any other products that are free for 3D?Is that what you were thinking?

I only know of one or two other free programs for 2D and only one for 3D modeling.If you were doing your machine parts in 3D it would be easier to extract the 2D views you need from the one model.  There would be no mistakes as long as the 3D model was correct.

Do you know the name of the products for the 2D and 3D design? Do the products do the same things or does one program do certain things that another does not?

nanoCAD is free.  It too is 2D.  I'd have to search for the other 2D CAD program name as well as the 3D program.  I have a source though so it shouldn't take very long.  A few minutes at best unless I get sidetracked.

OK...I'm back.So as far as 2D programs go there is BabaCAD, DoubleCAD XT, FreeCAD, LibreCAD and nanoCAD as previously mentioned.There is also one called A+ CAD 2010 but I wasn't impressed with its feature set and you'll drive yourself crazy trying to find it.As for 3D there is the free 3D CAD modeler program available from Delcam Advanced Manufacturing Solutions called PowerSHAPE-e and now that I think of it I do believe I found one other but that one I'll have to do a bit more digging to find.Damn I'm good.  Got it.BRL-CAD Release 7.24.0, Archer Alpha - an open source solid modeling system.That should be enough choices to keep you busy for a very long time.  See you in a year maybe?John Connor2013-08-16 20:21:40

Thank You. I will look into those. Do they all do the same thing? Or would you use certain ones to do certain projects?

Several do 2D; only a couple do 3D.I don't know the individual traits of each and every CAD program I've listed.  If you are really interested you will either test each one yourself, find a review written by someone knowledgeable in CAD, or join a forum that is primarily aimed at each program and start asking questions.  Sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty rather than rely on someone else to do all the work for you.

SketchUp is still free too.  It's 3D by design.  Easy to learn and can also include layers.Dave.