Guide
How to translate a drawing without breaking the dimensions
Translating a drawing’s text is easy to get wrong: most tools rewrite the dimensions and codes along with the notes, and the result cannot be manufactured. This guide explains the correct method — separate prose from geometry — and how to do it in practice with CADlingua in three steps, without converting to PDF and without fixing the file afterwards.
Step 1 · Start from the original CAD file, not a PDF
The most common mistake is exporting the drawing to PDF and translating the PDF. The moment you convert to PDF you lose the drawing structure: dimensions stop being dimension entities and become text on an image, and you can no longer get back to CAD. Always start from the original DXF or DWG. There, each dimension, tolerance and code is still an identifiable entity, and that is exactly what makes it possible to translate only what is prose. If you only have the PDF, ask for the CAD: translating a drawing properly requires the vector file, not a screenshot.
Step 2 · Translate only the prose, never the geometry
The golden rule: descriptive text (notes, legends, titles) gets translated; dimensions (Ø50, R5), tolerances (±0.1, H7), symbols (Ø, °, ±) and part codes are NOT touched. A general-purpose translator cannot tell them apart and rewrites them all. The correct way is for the tool to understand the DXF/DWG structure and isolate the geometry entities before translating. CADlingua does exactly this: it parses the file, separates prose from geometry, translates the prose with DeepL and your glossary, and leaves the geometry identical. Coordinates go in and come out the same.
Step 3 · Verify and deliver in the same format
After translating, open the file in SolidWorks, AutoCAD or any DXF viewer and check that the dimensions are unchanged and the notes are in the target language. With CADlingua you get the drawing back in the same format you uploaded (DXF or DWG), so there is no reconversion step and no loss. If you work with a specific company, set its glossary and the proper nouns to preserve once and they apply to every translation. The engine is validated against 7 real production drawings and supports any language, including Cyrillic, CJK, Greek and Arabic.