in autocad plot to a digital printer (you make your own setup for this in plotter manager), then link in in-design. and go from there.

i forget what is did with vectorwroks, but recall it being slightly easier...

i never bring dwgs into photoshop; resolution sucks too bad and can't scale later...

import drawings directly into illustrator, and manipulate.

keep them as vector lines, do not rasterize in photoshop, they'll look like crap if you do.

programs uses for portfolio:

AUTOCAD: final drawings should be eithier printed to pdf and then into illustrator or i think you can just copy paste.

ILLUSTRATOR: page layout and graphic design, do your text here.

PHOTOSHOP: image manipulation, then drop into illustrator

INDESIGN: drop all you finished illustrator pages on to indesign pages to make the book, then save it as a pdf.

"winpdf", or maybe "win2pdf", can be downloaded for free. if you play with lineweights and print it on a 48x60 or something, the quality is very nice. i use photoshop more than illustrator, but the quality in photoshop is just as nice if done right.

in AutoCAD, print as PDF
open PDF in Illustrator
adjust line weight in case you need shrink drawings.
and save as pdf

not sure if that i best way s. park.

i print to file from autocad, and it comes out as an eps file, with line weights exactly as i drew them in autocad. i never need to adjust in illustrator, and they are as scalable as can be,

instead i link to eps file in in-design. which makes it very easy to update dwgs without changing layout.... seriously this saves me so much time on presentations ( eps. when design is still ongoing and plans subject to change), i couldn't recommend it enough.

jump is right.
the best way i've found is to plot to an .eps or .ps file. this maintains the vectors while also maintaining any lineweights you have set up in autocad. you can then bring that into illustrator, in-design, or another vector based application to lay out the page.
i have mine set up as using the digital imaging group as my plotter - then plot to file and simply end the file name w/ a .ps or .eps. this has always worked well for me.

What I have always done is just open the dwg file in Illustrator. The file will come in vector and with all the lines the same color as they are in AutoCAD. Then I adjust the line weights in Illustrator. It seems better to do this adjustment in Illustrator since you will probably be playing with the scale of the drawing and you rline weights in AutoCAD may or may not look good in Illustrator. The easiest way to do this is to grab a line then go to [Select], [Same], [Fill and Stroke] and this will grad every line or fill in the drawing that is that color and then you just change the color to black and change the line weight to whatever you want. It's pretty simple and gives you a lot of control over the drawing. Any of the suggestions on here will work fine but absolutely do not do this through Photoshop.

my experience with adjusting line weights in illustrator is that it's a royal pain in the ass as you're adjusting each line individually. it probably depends on how much you've set up your autocad drawing w/ lineweights - ie: if you use a ctb file or similar. but if you do have lineweights set up in autocad - you can plot to postcript, and the lineweights should actually scale with the drawing in illustrator so you don't end up w/ really fat lines that bleed together if you scale the drawing down.

in my portfolio, i plotted to pdf.... and the drawings turned out crappy

but i still got a job, and thats all that count's right? so i must have been doing something right. i guess this only proves that some employers actually want designers, not cadmonkeys...

i agree with most comments about importing to illustrator via .eps, when the objective is printing out a physical copy of the portfolio. however it seems like most firms are asking for straight-up digital copies of work samples (as a first application step, at least). the fact is that on-screen, vectors in PDF format look good when (really) up-close, but when zoomed out to full-screen size the lines are way too dense and can ruin a format.

so, for email portfolios and work-samples, i recommend: after plotting to file from autocad as an .eps, and opening said .eps in illustrator, i'd export it as a jpeg with 300 dpi and then adjust accordingly in photoshop (levels to get the density and contrast right, file and pixel size, etc.). this image can be composed along with whatever other project images you have in your format, be it in illustrator, indesign, etc... in the end convert it all to a PDF (be careful though--converting to PDF is a balancing act between quality and file size). a raster image CAN be good, and will probably be better on-screen if you do it right.

yeah, a good technique is to integrate ur construction documents graphically with some built work... to show the translation.. perhaps some good details that you have done and the photos of the executed details...overlayed, etc... use ur skillz.

and if this portfolio is for a job, bring the actual (half sized) construction sets to the interview, rather than have a "construction documents" page on a portfolio, as those are rather dry (at least for someone skimming thru prospective portfolios)... also, its good to have a construction set, to show u can manage a set/pull together a set... rather than have just details floating around in your portfolio.

as far as using cad, i always print to pdf and import into photoshop/illustrator. in my experience, the pdf lines are clean enough to manipulate, and to print out in adobe programs...

sounds like lots of alternatives that can work.

in my case if portfolio is a3 double spread (or whatever) i print from autocad with page set up @ a3. lineweights are set to scale, etc, and everything works perfectly. if you have to change line weights after exporting your ac settings aren't correct.

if i had to pay anyone to do that kind of work twice it would actually be incredibly offputting. that is some tedious work changing linewheights in illustrator, and what do you do when there is a change to part of the building every other day (which absolutely DOES hapen in the real world)? if i hired someone who claimed to be competent with all software and then saw them doing the illustrator lineweight thing i would then realise they had lied...not grounds for firing, but probably some razzing would take place...;-)