So my college bought a new laser cutter and I wanted to know what the best/easiest way to convert the PDF to something easily loaded into the laser cutter. I've heard about corel draw but I am looking for something I don't have to dish out more money for (being a broke college student). Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
I am on a similar quest to you, but perhaps a pace or two ahead of you.
Whilst I am not a student, (actually out of the work force and rather old), my financial situation is similar.
So far I have been playing with inkscape with a couple of plugins and whilst I have not not yet built my cutter I have been importing PDFs of plans and making GCode files for use with the CNC machine.
As Inkscape is absolutely free, as are the plugins, and so far the number of steps in the process has been rather minimilistic I recommend that you download it and try it. The only thing you have to lose is a little time!
Just where I am at the moment!
Have fun!