Putting a JWW drawing in Word or Excel without Jw_cad
You only want the drawing in a report or a quote, and Jw_cad is not installed. Every guide you find assumes it is. Here is how to do it by converting the drawing to an image first.
Why the usual advice does not help
The common instruction is to copy from Jw_cad and paste into Excel as an enhanced metafile. It gives a clean result and it is good advice — but it assumes Jw_cad is installed and can open the drawing. That is no use to someone who was simply sent a .jww and needs it in a document. In that case, convert the drawing to an image format first, then paste that.
Which format to paste
SVG — stays sharp at any size
The best choice. It holds the drawing as real shapes, so it stays sharp when you enlarge it in the document and when you print. Word, Excel and PowerPoint in Microsoft 365 and Office 2016 or later insert it directly. Right-click and Convert to Shape if you want to change individual line colours or weights.
PNG — when you just need it in quickly
An ordinary image, so every version of Office takes it without trouble. Export it at 2× or 3× resolution and it still prints cleanly. Enlarge it after pasting, though, and the lines go soft.
PDF — when it should be an attachment, not a picture
If the drawing itself is what people need to study, attaching a PDF reads far better than pasting a picture into a page. It is also the right choice for printing.
Step by step
- Drag the .jww onto this site. The drawing appears straight away.
- Switch to monochrome if you need it. For documents that print in black and white, or get photocopied, it reads better.
- Choose SVG or PNG and download. PNG also lets you choose the resolution.
- In Word or Excel, go to Insert → Pictures → This Device and choose the file you saved.
Tips for a clean result
- Resize from a corner handle. Dragging a side handle distorts the proportions, which makes the drawing useless as a drawing.
- In Excel, right-click the picture and set Size and Properties → Properties → Don't move or size with cells, so changing a row height does not shift the drawing.
- Word can compress images automatically when saving. If thin lines disappear, turn image compression off in the options.
- Exported drawings have a white background, so they show as a white rectangle on coloured paper or slides.
Things to watch
- A pasted drawing is not at any particular scale. It is shrunk to fit the page, so you cannot measure lengths off it. Read dimensions from the numbers written on the drawing.
- In a PNG the text is part of the image and cannot be searched or selected. In an SVG the text stays as text.
- Layers you hid in Jw_cad stay hidden after conversion. You can also toggle visibility on this site before exporting.
- Before it goes into anything important, check the key dimensions against the original.