With over 8 million downloads of the Autodesk DWF Viewer, downloads of the Autodesk DWF Toolkit continue to take off. The DWF Toolkit allows third parties to develop applications that read or write multi-sheet drawings in DWF (Design Web Format) format. The toolkit contains C++ libraries that aid in the generation, reading, and parsing of DWF files. Experienced C++ programmers use it to work with DWF files without having to understand their complete underlying data format. The DWF Toolkit is available free of charge. To date, it has been a banner year for downloads of the DWF Toolkit. More and more companies are rallying around the DWF format.
With the release of DWF Toolkit 7, Mac OS X and Linux programmers are beginning to develop applications; however, some programmers continue to download version 6 of the DWF Toolkit. Perhaps this is because DWF Toolkit 7 is billed as a release candidate? Fear not. AutoCAD and other Autodesk products have shipped using DWF Toolkit 7. This version is currently billed as a release candidate to indicate that Autodesk may correct defects in toolkit if they are identified by third parties using it. In other words, Autodesk may make updates if necessary. So far, the need to update the toolkit has not arisen. Programmers are encouraged to download DWF Toolkit 7 for developing applications.
