First, it does seem odd that a dxf file opens at an incorrect scale in some software, and possible as mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, that the issue is as basic as a drawing dimensioned in inches being viewed in metric units.
Spotnik wrote:I've been struggling with this myself. I thought Autodesk would do the trick, but of course a simple "save as" or "export to" PDF isn't quite as intuitive as you'd think. If I get a PDF at all it's of one corner of the drawing. No good. So eventually, I got parts of the drawing to save to PDF, but I can't tell if Kinkos will just be able to print them out as-is, or if they need a scale for these too. I'd like to just get one PDF with the entire image on it, but Autodesk thinks it's this huge sized sheet of paper that Adobe doesn't recognize.
There is a limit on the size of page that can be displayed correctly by Adobe Acrobat and Reader, as came to light recently in these threads on another forum:
Converted files are BLANK
CAL to PDF Conversion
But in the cases mentioned Adobe software displayed the PDF files tested as blank pages, I believe, so that doesn't exactly fit the issue as reported, although the problem did relate to the large page sizes that are common with engineering drawings. Interestingly, other PDF viewing software tested opened the same files correctly, so that is something you might bear in mind in any future tests.
It does look as if the issue as described is more likely related to the AutoCad settings used, such as the page size entered. Or even simply due to inch dimensions in the dxf file being interpreted as, or mixed with, dimensions in millimetres or centimetres?