Visio drawings and stencils¶

Got a diagram someone made in Microsoft Visio? Open it here and keep working on it. SimpleDiagrams reads Visio's own files and turns them into a new SimpleDiagrams diagram. Your Visio file is never changed.

Open one¶

Choose File > Open… and pick the file, drop it on the SimpleDiagrams icon in the Dock, or drop it on any SimpleDiagrams window. That's it. There are no options to choose, on purpose: each one would be a question most people can't answer.

These files open:

The diagram opens as a new, unsaved document. Save it to keep it. If the file is big, a small window says it's opening and offers Cancel. Cancel really does stop it, and nothing is left behind.

Visio files saved in the format Visio used before 2013 (.vsd, .vdx, .vst and .vtx) don't open. SimpleDiagrams tells you so when you choose or drop one. Open it in Visio, save it as a Visio Drawing (.vsdx), and open that. A Visio stencil (.vssx) becomes a library instead: see Visio stencils below.

What comes across¶

Most of it:

• Every page, in order, with its name and size. A drawing made to scale, like a floor plan, arrives at its size on paper.
• Shapes, with their colours, lines and text. A stencil shape built from many pieces arrives as one shape, so you don't get a pile of fragments. That includes the name under it: a cloud icon and its caption are one shape, with the caption as its label, right where Visio put it.
• Text keeps its size and weight. Visio is thrifty: a shape often stores only what it changed, say its text colour, and leaves the size and the bold to its template. Those come across too, so a template's small 8-point labels stay small.
• Text in a box of fixed width, like a template's tip cards, wraps inside the box, as it does in Visio. A label Visio sizes to its words gets a little extra room instead, so a wider font doesn't push its last word onto a second line.
• Plain shapes become SimpleDiagrams shapes. A Process box becomes the hand-drawn Square from the Basic library, a Decision becomes the Diamond, Start/End becomes the Pill, and so on, at the same size and in Visio's colours. So the diagram looks like it was drawn here.
• BPMN shapes become shapes from the BPMN library: each event, gateway and task type, the data objects and the messages.
• Everything else keeps Visio's own outline, as an editable drawing. Network equipment, floor plan furniture and cloud icons all look as they did.
• Swimlanes and containers become SimpleDiagrams Swimlanes and Containers. A cross-functional flowchart becomes one Swimlanes shape with the same title and lanes, each lane holding the shapes Visio kept in it. A box made with Visio's own container styles becomes a Container holding its shapes, and so does an ordinary BPMN expanded sub-process. A frame from another stencil, such as a cloud provider's network or subnet, becomes a Container too: it keeps its own look and holds its shapes.
• Connectors stay attached to the shapes they were glued to, keep the route Visio gave them, and keep their arrowheads and labels. That includes connectors glued to a point just under an icon's caption, where cloud icons like to keep one. A right-angle connector keeps its corners until you choose Reset Route.
• Callouts keep their look, and the line from a callout to the shape it points at becomes a connector, so it stays attached when either one moves.
• Comments become sticky notes beside the shape they're about, with the name of the person who wrote them.
• Groups stay groups, pictures (PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF and BMP) come across, turned and flipped the way Visio showed them, and shape data arrives as shape data.

What's different¶

A few things can't come across exactly:

• Fonts. If your Mac doesn't have a font the diagram uses, the default font takes its place, and lines may break in different places.
• Theme colours. Visio works some colours and line weights out from its theme as it draws. They come across as near as possible. Nearly, not exactly.
• Swimlane colours. A Swimlanes shape has one fill and one line colour, so the coloured title band and lane strips Visio draws aren't kept. A lane title Visio wrote in white on a dark strip would all but vanish on a pale lane, so a title that wouldn't read on its new fill gets a colour that does. One that reads keeps its own.
• Phases. A flowchart with one phase loses its phase heading, since Swimlanes have no phases. Two or more phases arrive as ordinary lines.
• Membership. A shape belongs to a lane or container here only if it lies wholly inside it. A shape inside the swimlanes stays in the lane Visio gave it, even one sitting across the line between two lanes. A shape inside two overlapping containers belongs to the one in front. A shape Visio kept in a lane or container that reaches outside it isn't a member, so it doesn't move with it. The summary lists any container or swimlanes that doesn't hold everything Visio kept in it.
• Container titles. A container from another stencil shows its title at its top left, as every container here does, which may not be where Visio put it. Where Visio keeps an icon in that corner, such as a cloud network's, the icon keeps its size and its corner when you resize the container, and the title starts just after it, as in Visio. The icon shrinks evenly only if you make the container smaller than its stencil drew it, or than the size it opened at if that was smaller. The title keeps the colour Visio gave it, since it still sits on that stencil's own drawing.
• Callouts stay where they are when you move the shape they point at; only their line follows.
• Shape data. Numbers keep the unit Visio showed them in, such as feet or degrees. A date with a time, a duration or an amount of money arrives as text so nothing is lost, because shape data here has no time of day, duration or currency. A duration is written in the unit Visio showed, such as hours.
• Labels wider than their shape, like the name under a small BPMN event, stay the shape's label and sit where Visio put it, reaching past the shape's edges. A label that stands apart from its shape, one on a shape that also holds a picture or a second text, or one on a shape drawn with Visio's own drawing tools rather than taken from a stencil, arrives as a separate text box grouped with the shape instead, so it still stays where it was.

What's left out¶

• Pictures in Windows-only formats (EMF and WMF) and embedded Office documents. A placeholder of the same size marks the spot.
• Gradients become their first colour. Shadows, glows and Visio's sketch effect aren't drawn.
• Shapes on hidden layers, data Visio hides, links to outside the file, and comments on background pages.
• Extra text or pictures in a container's or lane's heading, beyond its title, and shape data on a group, since a group here holds no data.
• Shape data on a connector, and on the parts a stencil shape is built from, such as each wall of a floor plan's room. A connector here holds no data, and a shape keeps only its own. The summary lists each one.
• Macros. They're never opened, never run and never kept.

The summary¶

When the diagram opens, a short message says so and lists anything that didn't come across exactly, such as fonts this Mac doesn't have. Shapes that became their matching SimpleDiagrams shapes aren't listed there, since nothing needs checking. Click Show Details… to see which shapes each line is about, page by page, and click Select to find one in the diagram. The details also list what came across in another form, such as those matched shapes.

The summary stays available while the document is open: choose File > Show Import Summary. It isn't saved with the diagram.

Visio stencils¶

A Visio stencil (.vssx, or .vssm with macros) is a file of shapes. Import one and its shapes become a library of your own, ready to drag onto any diagram. Choose Import Library… from the Library panel's menu, drop the stencil anywhere on a SimpleDiagrams window, or open it from the Finder or with File > Open…. While you drag a file over the window, a message says what dropping it will do. The library takes the stencil's file name.

Stencils saved in the format Visio used before 2013 (.vss and .vsx) can't be imported. Open one in Visio and save it as a Visio Stencil (.vssx), or ask whoever made it for a .vssx copy, and import that.

Each shape keeps its look and colours, its connection points, its shape data, and whether it keeps its proportions when you resize it. A label Visio puts below a shape sits below it here too, and so does one wider than the shape, like a cloud icon's name: it stays within the shape's width and wraps there if it needs to. A picture the stencil turns or flips stays turned or flipped. A container shape, such as a cloud provider's network frame, holds what you put on it. A shape's tip from Visio becomes its description in the library, shortened to 300 characters if it's longer.

Each shape also keeps its words. Place one and it starts with the label the stencil gave it, bold and sizes included, such as a C4 model shape's name, type and description. A container shape starts with its words as its title. If the shape takes your toolbar colours when you place it and its words wouldn't read on your fill, they get a colour that does. Words that land on the very fill they were written for are left exactly as they are, however pale.

Import the same stencil again, say after its maker updates it, and SimpleDiagrams offers to update the library you already have, rather than adding a second one. The sheet says how many shapes will be replaced. Shapes you've already placed in diagrams keep their look, and anything you added that the stencil doesn't say, such as a description, is kept. The library's old shapes aren't, so export it first if you might want them back. Updating a library you already have has the rest.

Some things a library shape can't hold:

• Lines and connectors in a stencil are left out. Use SimpleDiagrams' own connectors instead.
• A second label. A library shape starts with one label, so words on a second part of a stencil shape, or words too long for a label, are left out.
• Words on a picture. Only drawn shapes start with words. A stencil shape that's a picture keeps its picture, and its words are listed as left out.
• Visio's options and handles. Right-click options, yellow control handles, and parts that keep their size are left out, so each shape keeps the look it starts with and stretches evenly when you resize it. That includes a container shape's corner icon, which in a Visio drawing you open keeps its size.
• Gradients become their first colour.

When the library is added, a short message lists anything that didn't come across.