A contractor sends a DWG and the person who has to read it does not have AutoCAD. That is the whole problem, and it is expensive to solve by buying a licence for someone who opens a drawing twice a year.

Upload it to the CAD viewer instead: DWG, DXF and DGN, up to 10 MB, rendered in the browser with nothing installed and no account, and deleted once you close the tab.

The Advantages of Using Doconut.app for Viewing AutoCAD Files

The Importance of AutoCAD Files

AutoCAD files are indispensable in technical fields where precision and detail are paramount. Here's a quick overview of the most common formats:

DWG: Widely used for storing 2D and 3D design data and metadata, DWG is the native format for AutoCAD and contains essential information about the drawing's layers, fonts, and layouts.
DGN: A popular format for infrastructure projects, DGN files are used in CAD programs like MicroStation, offering powerful capabilities for managing large-scale designs.
DXF: The Drawing Exchange Format (DXF) is designed for interoperability, allowing AutoCAD drawings to be easily shared and used across different CAD platforms.

Each of these formats carries its own set of strengths, but viewing them without the correct software can be a challenge. That’s where Doconut.app comes in.

Why Choose Doconut.app for Viewing AutoCAD Files?

Doconut.app opens AutoCAD files in the browser without specialised software. Here is what it does, and where the edges are:

Cross-Platform Compatibility: Not everyone has access to AutoCAD or similar CAD software. With Doconut.app, you can view DWG, DGN, and DXF files across different devices and operating systems using just a web browser.
No Additional Software Needed: No install, no plugin, no account and no licence. Note that this is our site, not a component you drop into yours — embedding the viewer in your own application is the separately licensed Doconut SDK.
Drawn from the geometry: The drawing is rebuilt from the arcs, hatches, line weights and dimension text in the file, not from the small preview image a DWG carries inside it. That is the difference between reading a title block and guessing at it.
Multiple Formats, One Tool: Doconut.app supports a range of file formats, including DWG, DGN, and DXF. This flexibility makes it a versatile tool for any industry that works with AutoCAD or similar software.
Layers and measurement: Zoom, pan, move between sheets, switch layers off to see what they were covering, and measure a distance, an angle or an area — which is usually the actual reason you opened a drawing you did not make.
Everyone can open it: Send the drawing as usual; the person without AutoCAD reads it in a browser rather than asking you to export a PDF. There is no shared workspace here and no link to distribute — each person opens their own copy in their own session.
Nothing is kept: The upload runs over HTTPS and the drawing is deleted from our servers when you close the tab. There is no password protection, no sharing controls and no account here — the privacy guarantee is that we do not keep the file, not that we lock it up for you.

When a drawing does not look right

Most of what appears broken in a CAD file is the format being itself, not the renderer:

It arrives nearly empty. A DWG is often a container of references. The site plan, the grid and the title block can be four separate files attached by path, and you were sent one of them. Nothing was lost in transit — the others were never inside it.
The text has moved. SHX and custom fonts live in the AutoCAD support path, not in the drawing, so they are substituted and labels shift.
Everything is on a layer that is off. Turn the layers back on before concluding the file is empty.
It is over 10 MB. PURGE removes unused blocks and layers, and WBLOCK writes out just the sheet you need. Converting to DXF makes the file larger, not smaller.
On any screen: the viewer adapts to desktops, tablets and phones, though a dense drawing is still a dense drawing on a small screen.

Why Doconut.app is Ideal for Your Business

For an engineering firm, an architectural studio or a project manager on an infrastructure job, the value is narrow and real: the people who need to read a drawing can read it, without a licence each and without you exporting a PDF every time somebody asks.

Conclusion

DWG, DXF and DGN, up to 10 MB, in a browser tab, deleted afterwards. That is the offer, and for reading a drawing somebody sent you it is usually the whole answer.

If drawings arrive regularly, the CAD viewer is the page worth keeping. If the viewing has to happen inside software you are building, that is the Doconut SDK, which is where the same rendering engine is licensed.