Import and export to/from Visio [LWN.net]

Import and export to/from Visio

Posted May 5, 2004 11:42 UTC (Wed) by etwilson (guest, #8459)
Parent article: The Grumpy Editor's guide to diagram editors

My problem with all these tools is that everyone else in my department at school uses MS-Visio and since most of the work that I do is within a group context, I need to use Visio also. This is of course Microsoft's fault due to their closed file formats but it's the reality of working within a group. If OpenOffice could create a clone that imports and exports as well as Writer and Calc do I would be very happy.

(Log in to post comments)

Import and export to/from Visio

Posted May 5, 2004 19:04 UTC (Wed) by redferni (subscriber, #112) [Link]

The Visio file format is horrific, but it is possible to import from Visio 2002 by parsing its EMF preview (I've nearly got a vsdtosvg script working using this), and if you can get the sender to save as VDX (XML export) the excellent vdxtosvg XSLT converter should be able to get you SVG, and from there to Inkscape/Sodipodi and friends.

I don't know of anyone who's working on export to Visio, although I suppose you could do some sort of svgtovdx. It's a lot of work though.

Import and export to/from Visio

Posted May 6, 2004 8:44 UTC (Thu) by mdekkers (guest, #85) [Link]

I am in the same position as etwilson, and the point is *nobody* in a group of 10 or 20 or more are *all* going to save in a different format simply because *i* choose to use free software. They (rightly) state that my employer provides me, at great cost, with the tools to do a job efficiently and effectively, and if I choose to use something else, that should never be *their* problem. Can't say I disagree. If there was something on parity with Visio, I would be happy to use it - however, none of the current crop of tools are. I use OOo on Linux all the time, but for Visio I have to fire up VMWare. Faxt is - there is no Visio replacement, not even close, and that will be a significant hurdle for some time to come.