ViewCompanion Standard

ViewCompanion Standard is a resourceful piece of software developed to help you view and print drawing files previously created by CAD software (like AutoCAD). It offers support for plotter, PDF, DWF, HPGL, HPGL/2, HP-RTL and other types of files.

The GUI is formed from a large window that looks quite professional. It has a neatly organized structure and supports multiple tabs, which means that you can open multiple files at once and easily switch through them.

It is possible to zoom in and out, change the aspect ratio, rotate, mirror or flip the image, toggle the background color, measure lengths, polygon areas or rectangles, edit and select the drawing scale, as well as set the calibration.

What's more, you can bring up a reference window with the drawing, magnify details, view a list of named views, copy the whole drawing, displayed portion or custom region to the Clipboard, extract text from the file, take snapshots and save them to image files, or jump to a particular page.

ViewCompanion Standard lets you enter sketch mode to display the drawing with outlined shapes and thin lines for improved redraw speed, or convert the document to grayscale or monochrome.

It is also possible to compare two files to spot the differences, as well as to prepare the project for printing by editing page options (e.g. scale, handling, poster mode), inserting a header, footer and watermark, as well as by configuring pen settings (e.g. width, style, color).

Additional functions powered by ViewCompanion Standard focus on performing batch operations when it comes to printing drawing files, converting them to other formats (e.g. to PDF, BMP, DWF, DXF, JPEG) and generating reports, publishing the active file to PDF or DWF format, putting together a movie, extracting pages, or adding overlay files. You can associated file types with this app, reset the UI to default state, and check for software updates with one click.

The tool did not put a strain on computer performance in our tests, since it used a decent amount of CPU and memory. It carries out tasks rapidly, such as file type conversion or batch reports. We have not come across any difficulties.

ViewCompanion Standard comes loaded with surprisingly rich tools and settings for viewing, printing and performing some operations on CAD drawings, and it should meet the requirements of a lot of users looking for such an application that does a great job.

For additional features, you can check out ViewCompanion Pro and ViewCompanion Premium.