Windows Shell Extension for previewing, processing and printing AutoCAD file types within MS Office Outlook and/or Windows Explorer Preview Panes

Works with AutoCAD 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 

Getting Started| Overview of Functionality |Install/Uninstall|Additional Information|Contact| Support Information |Version History

Getting Started

The Longbow Previewer allows you to quickly preview, process and print AutoCAD file types such as DWG, DXF, DWT, DWF, etc. from within MS Office Outlook and/or Windows Explorer Preview Panes without the need to open the file in AutoCAD. The Longbow Previewer also provides access to AutoCAD related functionality via your Microsoft Outlook 2007 (or newer) and/or Windows Explorer shell extensions running in Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, 8,1, Windows 10 or Windows 11.

NOTE: Windows XP support includes all of the product features listed except for those provided by the Windows Explorer Preview Pane Window extensions (this feature is not supported in Windows XP). 

NOTE: If you are having problems with this software, please read the Additional Information section below

Overview of functionality

• Preview AutoCAD file types from within the Outlook and Windows Explorer Preview Pane window
  • Preview information and additional capabilities for DWG, DXF, DWT and DWS file types
    • High resolution preview of file
      • Hovering over the Longbow Previewer thumbnail triggers a huge high res preview
      • Provides original DWG view or “Zoom Extents” mode
    • DWG/DXF/DWT/DWS AutoCAD “Save As” different file version
      • Helps a lot when your AutoCAD is older than the DWG file version you have, or if you have to send a specific DWG file version to someone you know.
    • Digital Signature information and verification
    • DIMSCALE information
      • Current Scale of the DWG file (DIMSCALE)
      • All Scales listed in the DWG file
      • Scale renaming (feature will be enabled soon!)
    • Xref information
      • Lists all Xrefs in the DWG file
      • Includes details about resolved/unresolved Xrefs
    • Purgeable objects information
      • Lists total number of purgeable objects, including their names
    • Audit issues information
      • Reports all Audit issues
    • Export functionality
      • Export your DWG or DXF to PDF, DWF, DWFX, BMP, FBX, STL, WMF, SAT, EPS
      •  Save your DWG or DXF to different versions of AutoCAD
      • “Quick Print”/Print – publish your DWG or DXF without opening AutoCAD
  • This software allows the preview of other common AutoCAD file types such as .lsp, .cuix, .mnu, .dbx, .arx, .crx, .mnl, etc. For a full listing see Full Listing of Supported AutoCAD Files Types below.
• Preview other useful common file types
  • .msi, .msm, .zip, .csv, etc. For more details see Other Additional Useful non-AutoCAD related Supported File Types below.

• Windows Explorer Shell Extensions – File views
  
  Using Windows Explorer’s Preview Pane, you can also access the same functionality as listed above when you select a DWG or DXF file…
  • Purgeable objects information
  • Audit issues information
  • Run full Audit and save as new “Audited” file
  • Run full Purge and save as new “Purged” file
  • SaveAs functionality
    • Save DWG as DXF
    • Save DXF as DWG
    • right click a DWG or DXF file from within Windows Explorer and export to PDF, DWF, DWFX, BMP, FBX, STL, WMF, SAT, EPS
    • right click a DWG or DXF and save to a different version of AutoCAD
• Windows Explorer Shell Extensions – Folder views
  
  Using Windows Explorer, when you right click a Folder, you can execute multi-file operations such as…
  • Run full Audit and save as new “Audited” file
  • Run full Purge and save as new “Purged” file
  • SaveAs functionality
    • Save all DWGs as DXF
    • Save all DXFs as DWG
    • Export all DWG/DXF files to PDF, DWF, DWFX, BMP, FBX, STL, WMF, SAT, EPS
    • Save all all DWG/DXF files to a different version of AutoCAD

Preview AutoCAD file types from within the Outlook and Windows Explorer Preview Pane window

When you receive an email in Microsoft Outlook with a DWG or DXF file attached, single clicking the attachment will reveal the Longbow Previewer DWG preview control.

This control allows you to view important information about the file, without the need to open it inside of AutoCAD. The Previewer control also gives you the ability to Quick Print the DWG file, and to save the DWG or DXF as another file types or different AutoCAD DWG versions.

The image below shows a sample view of the Longbow Previewer previewing a DWG file from within an Outlook email (Note: The same preview is also available via Windows Explorer – make sure you have the Preview pane enabled  then select a DWG or DXF file) As you can see, the original DWG thumbnail is displayed in the bottom right along with a much improved High-Res version just above it…

The original DWG thumbnail is displayed in the bottom right along with a much improved High-Res version just above it… You can click the “Extents” checkbox option to show the Zoomed Extents version…

If you want to have a closer look at the preview image, simply hovering your mouse over the High-Res image will present you with a much more detailed view, as shown below… NOTE: images had to be trimmed to display in help

Using a different DWG file now, you will also notice the extremely useful Audit and Purge entries. These entries display the *current* audit and purge status of the DWG file… Simply hovering over the entries with your mouse gives you more detailed information about the status of each item, as shown below… 

and the same level of detail is available when hovering your mouse over the Audit entry…

From within the preview control, you can also SaveAs/Export your attachment to other file types…

If you are saving as a DWG or DXF file, you can select the SaveAs version number too…

Once you have selected your required export options, simply click the SaveAs button to execute…

The Digitally Signed section carries out a full validation check of the DWG file’s Digital Signature (if applied) and displays all of the information about the signature.
Here is an example of a different DWG file with a fully verified Digital Signature… (NOTE: some sensitive Digital Signature information has been blanked out) 

Preview other useful common file types

The previous examples are screen shots of AutoCAD file types being previewed inside of Microsoft Outlook (2007 or newer). The following screen shots are using the same technology but this time displaying via the Preview capability inside of the Windows Explorer Preview pane, for more common file types.

Opening Windows Explorer, inside of Windows 7 for instance, select a zip file via a single click. Then, over on the right side select the Show the Preview Pane button to quickly preview the contents of the ZIP file…

TIP: Double clicking any file inside of the Zip file will automatically open the file

You can also see what is inside an MSI installer package before you install it! Again, single-clicking the file inside of Windows Explorer with the Preview pane enabled gives you detailed information about the MSI file and what files it contains, as shown below…

Many more common file types are supported, such as .ini, .csv, .err, .log, .nfo, .py, .xml, .xps, .isf, and more! For more details see Other Additional Useful non-AutoCAD related Supported File Types below.

Windows Explorer Shell Extensions – File Views

When running Windows Explorer, if you want to access the extra tools that the Longbow Previewer installs for your DWG or DXF files, simply navigate to a DWG or DXF file inside Windows Explorer, then Right-click it…

As you can see, right clicking the DWG or DXF gives you access to

• Audit DWG
  • Show Audit Information
    • Displays the results of an audit run on the file
  • Audit – Complete
    • Runs a complete audit and fix of all objects in the file and saves the audited result as a new file called <originalFileName>_Audited.exe
• Purge DWG
  • Show Purge Information
    • Displays all Purgeable objects in the file
  • Purge All
    • Runs a complete purge of all objects in the file and saves the result as a new file called <originalFileName>_Purged.exe
• Save the DWG to a new file version
  • Save the DWG file as R12, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2010 or the latest DWG version that you AutoCAD supports.
• Save the DWG to a different file type such as PDF, DXF, DXFX, BMP, WMF, EPS, STL, SAT, FBX, etc.
• Save the DWG as a specifically versioned DXF
• Print gives you Quick Print functionality. This uses your default printer setup. NOTE: You must have Adobe Reader installed

When running either the Audit Information or Purge Information features, a dialog will appear showing the status…

Here’s the dialog in action, as you can see, it displays all of the normal Audit information that you would see inside of AutoCAD…

Doing the same with Purge displays information about Purgeable objects inside of the DWG.

You can save a fully purged or fully audited of the drawing file by selecting the Audit – Complete menu option for auditing and fixing the whole drawing or the Purge – All menu option for purging the whole drawing file. Either of these options will save a new file with either _Purged or _Audited as the new file suffix, as shown below…

After a short time (depending on the file size) the new fully purged file is automatically saved as the latest AutoCAD DWG file format version, as shown below…

Check out the other functions too

• Save your drawing file as a different DWG file format version R12, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2010 or 2013
• Save/Export your drawing file as a different type (perhaps PDF, DWF, BMP, etc.)
• Completely switch your DWG to a DXF file
• Select Print to invoke a Quick Print operation that plots all the Layouts.

Windows Explorer Shell Extensions – Folder Views

The Folder shell extension is accessed from any folder that you right-click on. It provides batch processing of DWG and DXF files…

Let’s convert all the DWG files inside of folder Project 1 to PDF files. You will see the Longbow Previewer Folder Processor dialog appear, it will process all of the files one by one giving you a report of each…

Right clicking on either the Input File Name or the Output File Name reveals the Open… menu, this will open the file for you to view…

You can also hover over the status text to find out what went wrong…

Full Listing of AutoCAD Supported File Types

• .dwg, .dwt, .bak, .dxf, .dwt, .dws – DWG previewer
• .dwf, .dwfx – DWF Viewer control
• .mnu, .cui, .mnl, .pgp, .pat, .mln, .dcl, .cus, .rx, .sat, .scr, .shp, .unt – text previewer
• .dcl, .lsp, .rx, .cus, .dxx, .err, .ini, .log, .scr – text previewer
• .cuix – Zip file previewer
• .xaml – Xaml previewer
• .atc, .fdc, .aws – XML previewer
• .arx, .crx, .exe, .dbx, .ctb, .pmp, .pc3, .bin, .dat, .fbx, .hdi – Binary previewer
• .fmp, .lin, .mln, .pat, .pgp, .psf, .shp, .unt, .cus, .sat – text previewer

Other Additional Useful non-AutoCAD related Supported File Types

• .resources – .NET Software Resources previewer
• .xml, .xps, .config, .psq, .manifest – XML previewer
• .csv – Datagrid previewer
• .isf – Serialized Ink previewer
• .msi, .msm – Windows Installer previewer, see what you are about to install be fore you install it!
• .resources, .resx– .NET Software Resources previewer
• .snk, .keys – .NET Strong name previewer
• .zip, .gadget – Zip file previewer, quickly views the contents of the Zip file
• .ctpl, .nfo, .py,

Additional Information

• This software supports Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11 both 32bit and 64bit. NOTE: Windows XP supports all of the product features except for the Windows Explorer Preview Pane Window extensions. 
• 80% of the functionality The Longbow Previewer requires AutoCAD 2013 or newer to be installed on your system
• This software requires Microsoft .NET version 3.51 or higher to run. For all Windows versions, make sure you are up to date with Windows Updates.
• Email previewing only works with Microsoft Outlook 2007 or newer
• Quick Print is only supported if you have the latest Adobe Reader installed
• DWF Viewing is only supported if you have the Autodesk DWF Viewer installed
• If the Previewer extensions are not showing as you expect, please reboot your machine and try again.

You can control certain rules around how the Previewer tool processes previews. This can be achieved by defining certain ini file Variables as shown below (be sure to reboot your system once the variables have been defined):

• PreviewerDisablePurgeCheck – disables the Purge check, if set to ‘True’
• PreviewerWaitToStartPurge– defines a period of time (in milliseconds) before starting the Purge process, default is 0. You may want to delay the start in order to give the High Resolution preview process the highest priority.
• PreviewerDisableAuditCheck– disables the Audit check, if set to ‘True’
• PreviewerWaitToStartAudit – defines a period of time (in milliseconds) before starting the Audit process, default is 0. You may want to delay the start in order to give the High Resolution preview process the highest priority.
• PreviewerAcadExeFolder – allows you to specify the AutoCAD (acad.exe) folder path for the Previewer to use
• PreviewerBypass2014Fix – On systems where 2013 and 2014 are installed, this setting will set the Previewer to bypass the default setup of using the 2013 version of AutoCAD over of 2014, if set to ‘True’
• PreviewerHighResImageScale – scales the High Resolution image by this factor, default 1.1. Note, the image may get fuzzy if the scale is too large

Install and Uninstall

The installer that ran when you downloaded this plug-in from Autodesk Exchange has already installed the Longbow Previewer into your system. It is recommended to restart your system in order to ensure full access to the software extensions.

To uninstall this plug-in, click Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features (Windows 7), and uninstall as you would any other application from your system.