Export to Visio diagram

+8 votes
asked Apr 22, 2013 in Wanted features by plantuml (294,960 points)

Someone has asked for Visio diagram generation.


After some tries, we have added a flag "-tvdx" to the command line that allows to generate .VDX file that can be read by Visio. You can download it here : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13064071/plantuml.jar

This is really an alpha version : many things are not working.

But this shows that Visio generation could be done.

Unfortunatly VDX format is not very documented. And it seems that Bezier curves/B-spline are not possible (any idea anyone?)

The VDX generation is not a high priority, so we will work on this only upon user requests.
 

commented Mar 26, 2014 by Fuhrmanator (1,700 points)
I would be interested in this feature. Here's my use case. PlantUML does a "pretty good" job of laying out diagrams in an agile manner - I can generate them quickly without having to worry about layout being perfect. However, once I start to have a "stable" diagram, I'd like to present a cleaned up version. Unfortunately, PlantUML won't let you fine-tune some of the details to get to that step. But I know I could do it in Visio. For this reason, I don't really care if Bezier Curves and B-splines work -- I'm going to use Visio's layout strategy to make the associations between classes look good. I'm not sure I would need export to visio for all diagrams (class and activity would be good, but sequence diagrams are not ones I need to "perfect").
commented Jul 28, 2014 by waste302006 (100 points)
My present team is heavily vested in visio.  Having learnt and loved PlantUML, it would be best to bring my team into the plantUML methodology as well.  Due to the existing users, it is hard to have them migrate without a way to show them that plantUML can help them work with the existing business needs as well.

Also, if there is documentation on how to install / use the aforementioned link to use the "-tvdx", it would be amazing.
commented Jul 29, 2014 by plantuml (294,960 points)
Actually, the -tvdx flag in available the official release : you have nothing to install. Once you will have test it, you will notice that the support is really minimal.
Tell us what is more important for you : we will add features on users requests, because we do not want to waste time on something that nobody would use.
commented Aug 11, 2015 by msch95 (100 points)
I'm also interested in this feature. My use case would be similar as  @Fuhrmanator
commented Aug 11, 2015 by Fuhrmanator (1,700 points)
I tried the -tvdx option. The resulting files seem to have no text in them.

I can import .svg into Visio 2010 and the result seems much better. Perhaps the strategy for better Visio support is to improve SVG support?

For example, it would be great if SVG format used groups <g> appropriately, since I think they map to Visio as grouped objects. In class diagrams, all of an association's elements should be in the same group: the line, the arrows, the multiplicities, the roles, the text on the association, etc.

Example:
ClassA "1" <-- "*" ClassB : Relies-on >

It requires some thought, but probably this applies to other elements, e.g., Objects in sequence diagrams should be grouped with their lifeline.

Inkscape has become a very powerful SVG editor. It would be great to validate the results of .svg output from Inkscape using that "standard."
commented Aug 12, 2015 by msch95 (100 points)
@Furmanator
The same problem (the vdx file shows no text) occurred in a component diagram in my use case.
I don't know how important that use case is to others.
commented Feb 26, 2018 by anonymous
Any update about this feature? Since the this problem still exists until now.
I think this is an important feature to me and most of users, thanks!
commented Aug 23, 2019 by Oliver
Hello,

today i tried out the `-tvdx` option and it works but is still very beta. Is there any way to force the development so it gets alpha?

best regards

Olli

ps. thanks a lot for the great plantuml

1 Answer

0 votes
answered May 17, 2013 by anonymous
VDX has schema available - Visio 2010  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff768724.aspx
Perhaps it is of help.
commented Mar 13, 2018 by Srikanta
Any update on the enhancement to Visio conversion is really helpful. Please help here.
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