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CAD stamp files: a seal as DXF linework, and what opens it

9 September 2026 ยท Stamp-Seal

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A CAD stamp is not the same job as a seal placed on a letter. On a letter it is a picture, and a good transparent PNG is the right answer. On a drawing that same PNG prints grey and soft, snaps to nothing, and adds a megabyte to every sheet it is copied onto.

What a drawing office wants instead is geometry: lines on a layer, at the size the stamp really is, plotting like everything else on the sheet. That is what the DXF in the CAD pack is, and this is what is in the file.

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What the CAD stamp pack contains

The CAD pack is the $6.00 download. It is everything in the $3.00 pack, the transparent PNG, the white PNG, the JPG, the print versions of each, the SVG, the print-ready PDF, the EPS and the Word file, plus three files that only appear at this tier:

The DXF, in specifics

It is DXF R12. That is the oldest widely used version of the format, and it is chosen for exactly that reason: R12 is the one nothing refuses. Newer versions buy features a stamp does not need and cost compatibility a stamp does need.

It is drawn at real size. 55.88mm across, which is 2.2 inches, the width of a physical rubber stamp. The file states its units in millimetres, so inserting it into a metric drawing lands it at the right size with no scale factor to remember and no seal that turns up the size of a title block.

Everything sits on one layer, called STAMP. Freeze it, recolour it, give it its own line weight, or turn it off for a plot, without touching anything else on the sheet.

Every ring, frame, rule and word is geometry. Not a raster wrapped in a CAD file: actual entities. That is why it plots as linework and why it costs kilobytes rather than megabytes.

Read more: Which stamp file format to download, and why there are six of them

The one thing to know about the lettering

Each character is written as its own TEXT entity, placed and rotated exactly where it sits in the design, including the wording that curves around the ring. Your CAD program then draws those characters in its own font.

So the layout is faithful and the letterforms are not. A seal that has to match the artwork exactly should be placed as the TIFF or the PNG; a seal that has to be editable and plot as linework is the DXF. The pack carries both, which is the reason it carries both.

Gradients, drop shadows and any foil or gloss effect are gone from the DXF as well. DXF has no way to express them, and a drawing does not want them: they would plot as grey smears.

What opens it

DXF R12 is read by effectively every program in this space. In practice that means:

If your program is not on that list, the question to ask it is whether it imports DXF. Almost all of them do.

Why there is no DWG

Because writing a valid DWG needs a licensed library. DWG is a closed binary format, and a half-correct one is worse than none: it opens, it looks fine, and it fails on somebody else's machine.

The practical answer is that this costs you one step. Every CAD program reads DXF natively and can save it out as DWG, so if your workflow needs that extension you open stamp.dxf and Save As. Nothing is lost in the conversion, because the geometry is already there.

The TIFFs, and who actually needs them

The two TIFFs are there for a specific and slightly unglamorous reason: submission portals and older document systems often list TIFF as an accepted file type and do not list PNG. When that happens the file you need is not a better PNG, it is a TIFF.

A TIFF stamp is uncompressed, at the same print resolution as the rest of the pack, and tagged with the seal's real physical size so a placing application knows how big it is meant to be. One has a transparent background; the other is on white, for anything that cannot handle transparency. The image is identical either way.

Cutting a physical die from it

This is one of the things an engineer seal DXF is for. It is real-size linework on a single layer, which is the form an engraver or a laser cutter asks for.

Two things to confirm with whoever is cutting: the size, and the minimum line width. A hairline that plots perfectly on paper may be finer than rubber or a laser kerf can hold, so a rule that reads as a crisp line on a drawing can close up or crumble when it is cut.

Do you need this pack?

Probably not, and that is worth saying on the page that sells it.

Buy the $3.00 pack if the stamp is going onto documents: PDFs, Word files, invoices, letterheads, certificates. That is most people, and the transparent PNG in it does the job.

Buy the CAD pack when the seal goes onto a drawing that will be plotted, when a portal has asked for TIFF by name, or when somebody is cutting a die from it. Those three cases are the whole of the difference.

One caveat on dates and serials

The DXF and the TIFFs are fixed at the moment they are generated, like every image in the pack. If the seal carries a date or a serial that has to stay live, the only file in any pack where those remain editable text is the Word document, and it is included here too.

Apply a professional seal only where you hold the credential it names, and check what your board or the receiving authority accepts on a drawing. Some take an applied image, some want a digital signature alongside it, and some still want wet ink on the original.

Questions people ask

What file format is a CAD stamp?

A DXF stamp, in the R12 version of the format, which is the one every CAD, GIS and CAM program reads. It carries the seal as geometry on a single layer called STAMP, drawn at its real 55.88mm.

Can I get a DWG stamp?

Not from here, and the reason is worth knowing: DWG is a closed binary format that needs a licensed library to write correctly. Open the DXF in any CAD program and save it as DWG, which takes one step and loses nothing.

Will the DXF look exactly like the PNG?

The geometry will. The lettering will not, because each character is stored as a TEXT entity and your CAD program draws it in its own font. Place the TIFF or the PNG when the seal has to match the artwork exactly.

Can a stamp maker cut a die from the DXF?

That is one of the things it is for: real-size linework on one layer is the form an engraver or a laser cutter asks for. Confirm the size and the minimum line width with whoever is cutting, since a hairline that plots on paper may not survive being cut in rubber.

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