Portable ViewCompanion Premium 17.1.0.1201 (x64)
ViewCompanion Portable is the most powerful member of the ViewCompanion family. ViewCompanion Premium can view, print and convert PLT plot files, Adobe PDF, Autodesk DWF, Postscript, CGM, TIFF, CALS and many other formats. ViewCompanion Premium support PLT plotter files using HPGL, HPGL/2, HP-RTL and Calcomp formats.
ViewCompanion Portable is a powerful software tool designed for users who need to work with various types of files in their daily workflow. It offers a wide range of features and functionalities that make it an excellent choice for professionals working in industries such as engineering, architecture, and manufacturing.
At its core, ViewCompanion Portable is a viewer, converter, and editor for CAD and other technical drawing file formats, including DXF, DWG, DGN, PDF, PLT, HPGL/2, and many others. This means that users can open, view, and edit files created by different software programs without the need for those programs themselves. The software’s ability to convert files from one format to another makes it easy to share files with colleagues or clients who may not have the same software installed on their systems.
With ViewCompanion Portable, users can also add markups, annotations, and measurements to their drawings. These tools enable users to highlight specific areas of a drawing, add comments, and indicate dimensions, making it easier to collaborate with others and convey important information. The software also supports layer management, which allows users to turn layers on and off and control their visibility, making it easier to work with complex drawings.
One of the standout features of ViewCompanion Premium is its batch processing capabilities. Users can select multiple files and apply the same changes to all of them at once, saving time and increasing productivity. This feature is especially useful for tasks such as converting files from one format to another or adding watermarks to a large number of drawings.
Another key feature of ViewCompanion Premium is its ability to print large-format drawings on standard printers. The software automatically tiles the drawing into smaller sections that fit within the printer’s paper size limitations, allowing users to print out large drawings without the need for expensive plotter equipment.
ViewCompanion Premium also includes a range of advanced features for more experienced users. For example, users can create macros to automate repetitive tasks, customize keyboard shortcuts for quick access to frequently used commands, and even write scripts using the software’s built-in scripting language.
In terms of user interface, ViewCompanion Premium is well-designed and intuitive. The program’s main window features a ribbon-style toolbar with all of the most commonly used tools and commands, making it easy for new users to get started. The software also includes helpful tooltips and context-sensitive menus that provide additional information and guidance.
Overall, ViewCompanion Portable is an excellent choice for professionals who need to work with technical drawings on a regular basis. Its comprehensive feature set, batch processing capabilities, and large-format printing support make it a versatile tool for a variety of industries. Additionally, its user-friendly interface and advanced features make it a great option for both novice and experienced users alike.
If you need to distribute drawings, e.g. on the Internet, you can convert your drawings to Autodesk Drawing Web Format (DWF), Scalable
- Vector Graphics (SVG) or Adobe PDF. All these formats are very popular for distributing drawings.
- You can convert multiple files of different formats to a single multi-page PDF, DWF or TIFF file.
- ViewCompanion can split a multi-page PDF, PDF or DWF files into several single paged files.
Your PLT, PDF, CGM and DWF files can be converted to Autodesk DXF format, which can be read by almost all CAD application, e.g.: Autodesk AutoCAD and Microstation.
File types you can take advantage of
This software application supports, at import, a pretty long list of formats, such as PLT, HPG, PDF, EPS, DWF, DXF, CGM, TIF, BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, DCX, TGA, ZIP and VPR, while export is possible using PDF, PS, DWF, DXF, CAL, GBR, GIF, PLT, PCX, PNG, SVG, EMF, BMP, WMF and TIF file extensions.
Tweaks and options
When it comes to editing, you can easily draw freehand, insert geometrical shapes (rectangle, ellipse, polyline etc.), text, notes and QR codes, as well as crop images and use a highlighter or erases.
Moreover, you can compare any two files, regardless of their format, and generate multiple reports in the same time, using a CSV or XML format, for further analysis and use. Batch conversions is supported, using the formats aforementioned at import and export, as well as batch printing.
Both batch conversion and printing is included.
The software can be configured to monitor a user selected folder, and all files copied to that folder will be automatically printed.
ViewCompanion gives you advanced functions for zooming and panning, and you can view your files fast and accurate.
Use Viewcompanion’s precise tools to measure dimension lengths and areas. You can measure using snap to drawing geometry for highest accuracy. Calibration of the measurement tools is available to make sure you get correct results if your drawings are not 1:1. The measurement results may be exported to csv, which can be loaded into Excel or any other spreadsheet application.
With ViewCompanion Portable you can add markups to the loaded file. Supported markup elements include rectangles, lines, dimension lines, area measurements, ellipses, polygons, text, arrows, stamps and images.
You can select one of the predefined stamps or create your own. User defined symbol libraries makes it easy to add frequently used symbols as markups. Hyperlinks can be added to markup elements, and a hyperlink can either open another drawing inside ViewCompanion, or open an Internet location (URL) using the default browser.
- All markup elements are stored in a separate file and the original file will be left unmodified.
- The markup elements can optionally be included when the viewed file is printed or converted.
- You can export markup elements as Autodesk DXF, Autodesk DWF, CGM and other formats.
Key Features
- View, annotate, convert, and print a wide range of file formats.
- Convert to a large number of output formats, please see the complete list of formats below.
- Use the PDF to CAD tool to convert your PDF files into editable DXF, DWF, PLT, SVG and CGM files.
- Watch folder conversion: Monitor a folder and automatically convert all files created in or copied to the folder.
- Watch folder printing: Monitor a folder and automatically print all files created in or copied to the folder.
- Compare two files and clearly visualize their differences.
- Advanced printing and plotting features for technical drawings and documents.
- Includes both batch conversion and batch printing.
- Annotate your files by adding text, symbols, stamps, barcodes, images, measurements and more.
- Precise measurement with snap to drawing geometry.
- Use the measurement and annotation functionality to perform digital takeoffs.
- Easily add watermarks to your PDFs — whether you’re working with a single file or processing multiple files in batches.
- Conform, or convert, any PDF file into PDF/A standard for archiving. Supports both batch processing and single-file conversion.
- Merge multiple PDF files into a single multi-page PDF file.
- Split a multi-page PDF file into individual files.
- Tile large-format PDF pages into smaller pages or separate files.
- Create searchable PDF files from scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR).
- Includes advanced raster processing tools to deskew, cleanup, remove foxing and more.
- Scan documents directly into a new file or append scanned pages to the currently active document.
- Overlay up to 10 different files and print them as a single drawing, or convert all files into one combined output file.
- Pen table support provides full control of colors, line styles, and line widths for printing and conversion.
- Color, grayscale, or black-and-white viewing, printing, and conversion.
- Text search and extract.
- Shell Extension for easy access to functions inside the Explorer Window and a full preview of the selected file.
- Powerful command line interface for automated conversion and printing.
Supported File Formats
ViewCompanion Premium can open the following file formats for viewing and conversion:
- Adobe PDF
- Autodesk DWF 2D
- Autodesk DWFx 2D
- Autodesk Inventor Drawings (IDW)1
- AVIF Image Format
- BMP (Windows Bitmap format)
- Calcomp Plotter Format
- CALS type 1 and 2
- CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) 2
- DCX (Multipage PCX)
- ECW (Enhanced Compression Wavelet)
- EDMICS C4 (Group 4 Tiled)
- EMF (Windows Enhanced Metafile)
- EMZ (Compressed Windows Enhanced Metafile)
- Excellon Drill Format
- Gerber RS-274D (Standard)
- Gerber RS-274X (Extended)
- Gerber X2 / X3
- GIF
- HEIC
- Intergraph Raster File Formats
- JPEG
- JPEG2000
- JPEG XL
- PCX (PC Paintbrush format)
- PLT, HPGL, HPGL/2, HP-RTL and KIPGL files
- PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
- PSD (Adobe Photoshop)
- SFF (Structured Fax Format)
- TGA (Truevision Targa)
- TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) 3
- WebP (Google Image Format for the WEB)
- WMF (Windows Metafile)
1. Support for Autodesk Inventor IDW file format requires Autodesk Apprentice Server to be installed on the same computer.
Download Autodesk Apprentice Server 2027 here — available free of charge.
2. Supports CGM files using both binary and clear text encoding. Supported profiles include ATA, CALS, WebCGM, and CGM*PIP.
3. Supported TIFF compression methods: Uncompressed, Packbits, LZW, Deflate, JPEG, CCITT G3 and G4.
- Microsoft® Excel
- Microsoft® PowerPoint
- Microsoft® Word
- OpenOffice Document Format
- RTF (Rich Text Format)
- Lotus Word Pro 1
- Microsoft Visio 1
- SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) 1
- WordPerfect 1
1. This file format is only supported if LibreOffice is installed.
ViewCompanion Premium can convert to the following file formats:
- Adobe PDF
- Adobe PDF/A
- Autodesk DWF
- AVI 1
- AVIF Image Format
- CALS CCITT Group 4 Raster 2
- GIF Image Format
- HEIC Image Format
- HPGL-2
- HP-RTL Raster
- JPEG Image Format
- JPEG2000 Image Format
- JPEG XL Image Format
- Paintbrush PCX
- Portable Network Graphics (PNG)
- TIFF Raster 3
- WebP Image Format
- Windows Bitmap
- Windows Enhanced Metafile
- Windows Metafile
- Adobe Postscript®
- Autodesk DXF
- Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM Binary)
- Gerber RS-274X
- Scalable Vector Graphics
Release Notes:
News:
- Added Watch Folder Conversion, allowing you to monitor a folder and automatically convert files added or copied into it.
- Added the option to apply a watermark to the active PDF document, with support for all pages or a user-defined page range.
- Added batch support for applying watermarks to multiple files.
- Added a new PDF Tile Page option for tiling (splitting) large-format pages into smaller pages (tiles).
- Added a new option in Advanced Conversion Settings to set the SVG export resolution (default is 96).
- The Defoxing filter dialog now includes an option to apply the filter to all pages.
- The Binarization filter dialog now includes an option to apply the filter to all pages.
- Added PDF watermark command line parameter.
Changes:
- The 64-bit version now includes the Tesseract OCR engine, eliminating the need for a separate installation.
- The Open Next File button is now displayed as a large icon.
- The Text Extract button has been moved to the Tools tab.
- The Hot Folder Printing button has been renamed to Watch Folder Printing.