DraftSight: Best Bank for the Buck!
June 21, 2019
DraftSight: Best Bank for the Buck!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with DraftSight
Currently, DraftSight is being used in my company to produce plan sets for structural engineering. To be specific, engineering related to waterfront structures, custom home plans, light commercial applications, and renovations/additions to existing structures. The product is being used by an individual. We use DraftSight to do all the CAD work (usually site plans, structural plans, and sections/details for construction). Then, we use DraftSight to plot and publish the drawing set for delivery to our clients.
- Very easy shortcut commands, and it's very intuitive. Also, shortcut commands are similar to AutoCAD, which is nice.
- The batch print option is great. I haven't done very many batch prints, but I have printed 23 pages, and it is so convenient to push print one time and have the program print all the drawings I want them to.
- DraftSight's customizability for each user. To be specific, I can set multiple user profiles for different styles of drafting, and just load each one when it is required. For example, structural detailing requires precise measurements and tolerances, vs civil engineering and site plans, which are usually dealing with tolerances of feet. So I can load each one depending on the project, and the dimensions will either be to the 1/16" or 1' depending on what we are doing. It's very nice.
- The number one thing that needs to be fixed is all the crashing. This program is outstanding, especially for the price. But, almost on a daily basis, the program crashes. This especially happens when my computer goes to sleep and I go to wake it up...DraftSight will not respond, and I have to reload (sometimes causing loss of work).
- The toolbars and commands in the ribbon are very "pixely," and it would be nice if those were a higher resolution. I searched for about 30 minutes to see if there was a setting to increase the resolution and never found a solution. I could be missing it. But a higher resolution would be nice.
- It needs the ability to modify all text in a text box or annotation to a different font style. Even better if I could select multiple text boxes or annotations and convert them all to a new font style if required.
- More customizable with the printing area. For example, when I set my page to print 22x34, there is a good inch on the left side and top that I am not allowed to draw in, due to printing areas. It would be nice to be able to drag those printable extents to where I want the page to print (I always print to PDF first then to a plotter).
- It would be great in batch print to select which pages to print in monochrome. For example, I use the color cyan for "existing buildings" so when they print, they print a lighter shade when printed in black/white. So when I do a batch print, I need to go into each individual sheet I set up with a different color, and manually print each individual page for monochrome so it doesn't print the line layer color. It would be great if there was an option in the batch print to select monochrome, etc.
- The return on investment that DraftSight has had on my overall business objectives has been a minimum of 50%. Nearly all of our plans are done with DraftSight, and the low price means that it is easier to recoup the cost for the program.
I have used AutoCAD Civil 3D in the past and honestly, DraftSight does 90% of what that program does. That should come with the disclaimer that most of my commands start with one letter like "L" for line, or "C" for circle, but when I need to do something a little bit fancier, DraftSight always delivers. I don't' even notice a huge difference between the two programs, as I did only 2D design in the past, and that's all my company will ever need.