Why QGIS will not open your DWG, and three ways around it
You used Project → Import/Export → Import Layers from DWG/DXF, and either got "Drawing import failed (unsupported version)" or waited two minutes and ended with zero layers. Nothing is wrong with the drawing or your settings.
Why — QGIS reads the 2000 format only
QGIS opens DWG through a library called libdxfrw, which understands DWG files up to the AutoCAD 2000 format. Drawings saved as 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013 or 2018 do not open. Almost every drawing you receive today is 2013 or 2018, so in practice QGIS cannot open them. The issue is qgis/QGIS#48637, open since 2022. In our own sample of 44 drawings, QGIS opened none.
Even when a file does open, the built-in import tends to lose text placement and hatch patterns. If layers came in but the result does not look like the drawing, that is why.
Option 1 — Save as DXF from your CAD (free)
In AutoCAD, BricsCAD, DraftSight or a free viewer: Save As → DXF. QGIS reads DXF
directly — Layer → Add Vector Layer gives you one layer per geometry type, with the
CAD layer name in the Layer field. To keep colours, line types, hatches and text
placement, import that DXF with the
free edition of EchoCad:
one CAD layer becomes one QGIS layer, and the drawing looks like the drawing.
The one drawback: you open every drawing in CAD to save it. For a handful of drawings this is all you need.
Option 2 — Convert with ODA File Converter (free, with conditions)
A converter from the Open Design Alliance that turns new DWG into 2000 DWG or DXF, a whole folder at a time. The free DWG plugins in the QGIS repository ask you to install it first. Two things to check: its licence terms restrict commercial use for non-members, and it is hard to install on a machine with no internet.
Option 3 — A plugin that opens DWG directly
EchoCad Pro opens DWG (R14 through 2018 and later) inside QGIS with no conversion step. The converter is bundled, so there is nothing to install and it works on a machine with no internet. Many R12 and R13 drawings that other tools call unreadable are recovered. Batch conversion turns a folder of drawings into one GeoPackage with a per-file report.
Try the free edition with Option 1 before buying: you see exactly how the layers split and whether the text survives — Pro uses the same import.
In short
- A few drawings — Option 1: save as DXF, import with the free edition.
- Many drawings and you can install a converter — Option 2 to make DXF, then the free edition.
- Many drawings, a closed network, or drawings arriving every week — Option 3.