How to export a DXF for cutting from Fusion 360, Onshape, Illustrator and Inkscape

3 September 2026 · KERF

DXF is the lingua franca of cutting. Every CAD package exports it, every cutting shop reads it, and when a DXF is exported well it carries exactly what a cutting machine needs: real-size outlines and nothing else. Here is how to get a clean one out of the four programs we see most, and, just as usefully, when you should not bother exporting at all.

What a good export has

Three things, whatever the program:

• Real size. The geometry is drawn at the dimensions of the finished part, ideally in millimetres.
• Closed outlines. One closed loop for the part's edge, one for each hole, and nothing else. Dimensions, notes and construction lines all read as geometry, and geometry reads as a cut.
• No live text. Any lettering is converted to outlines before export, so the shapes travel instead of the font name.

Menus drift between versions, so treat the steps below as the shape of the path rather than gospel. The check at the end catches anything that went wrong on the way through.

Fusion 360

Fusion thinks in solid bodies, and the DXF comes from a sketch, so the trick is getting the face you want into a sketch first.

1. Create a sketch on the flat face of your part.
2. Project the face's geometry into the sketch (press P for Project, then click the face). The outline and every hole land in the sketch.
3. Finish the sketch, find it in the browser tree on the left, right-click it and choose Save As DXF.

One Fusion habit worth keeping: sketch text does not survive this trip as text. Explode it to geometry before export, and remember the jet cuts right through, so lettering is stencil territory. Text to outlines covers the details.

Onshape

Onshape has the tidiest path of the four, because it exports straight from a face.

1. In the Part Studio, right-click the flat face of your part.
2. Choose Export as DWG/DXF.
3. Pick DXF as the format and millimetres as the units, and export.

Because the export comes from the face itself, the outline and holes arrive exactly as modelled, at real size, with nothing extra. It is hard to get wrong.

Illustrator

Honest answer first: if you work in Illustrator, you probably do not need a DXF. We take .ai files directly. Save with the Create PDF Compatible File option ticked, which is Illustrator's default, and upload the file as it is.

If a DXF is what you want anyway:

1. Convert every piece of text to outlines first: select it, then Type, Create Outlines.
2. Delete anything that is not the part: guides, notes, swatches parked off the artboard.
3. File, Export, Export As, and choose AutoCAD Interchange File (DXF). In the options, set the scale so one unit equals one millimetre.

Whichever route you take, the thing to watch in Illustrator is scale. Artwork drawn for print is often not at the size of the finished part, and a design format is measured at its printed size. Draw at real size and the rest follows.

Inkscape

Same honest answer: we take SVG, which is Inkscape's native format, so most of the time you just upload the .svg you already have. Set the document units to millimetres, draw at real size, convert text with Path, Object to Path, and you are done.

If you specifically need a DXF, use File, Save a Copy, and choose Desktop Cutting Plotter (AutoCAD DXF R14) with the units set to millimetres. Inkscape's DXF export flattens curves as it goes, so give the drawing a quick zoom-in afterwards to make sure arcs still look like arcs.

The check that catches everything

Whatever came out of whatever program, the moment of truth is the same. Upload the file at kerf.au/quote and look at the measured size on the part card. It shows the width and height we will actually cut. If it says 100 × 60 mm and that is your part, everything upstream worked. If it is out by 25.4, the file was drawn in inches, and the Resize control fixes it in one click. If it is out by ten, same story, one click the other way.

A part in 3 mm aluminium or 12 mm steel goes through the identical check, because the file only ever describes the outline. Material and thickness are choices you make on the quote, not things the DXF has to carry.