Visio type App for Mac

[GavinT]

A bit of a Newbie question... what Apps are out there for the Mac (Free stuff, and stuff you pay for) that can do stuff similar to Visio?

Thanks...
GT

 

[jsw]

OmniGraffle Pro is fantastic.

 

[mduser63]

OmniGraffle Pro is fantastic.

I second that. IMO, better than Visio and perhaps the quintessential Mac app. OmniGraffle (and Omni apps in general) are very well designed.

 

[GavinT]

Cheers Folks. Looks good, especially with some Visio export ability.

Any other ones out there... free ones?

Having said that, will probably get this.

 

[GreatDrok]

Cheers Folks. Looks good, especially with some Visio export ability.

Any other ones out there... free ones?

Having said that, will probably get this.

I've used OpenOffice/NeoOffice Draw for similar type graphics but it isn't able to save in a visio editable format unfortunately. It does have connectors to join shapes in a similar way to Visio but isn't as capable but might just get you by. The finished output can always be exported to an image that can then be used by other programs.

I bought OmniGraffle Pro and it is very nice but I also found that trying to share anything too fancy with Visio isn't great. You can only save as VisioXML and there are many features of OmniGraffle that aren't supported by Visio or get mangled. Keep it simple though and you should be OK. The import is pretty good but again it needs to be VisioXML format.

Visio itself runs OK under Virtual PC although it is slow to start. Runs much better under Parallels on an Intel Mac of course. I prefer OmniGraffle personally as I try to avoid having to run a Windows app if I can. Thumbs up for OmniOutliner too which came with my MBP. Surprising how good it can be for sketching out a plan of action.

 

[thasan]

OmniGraffle Pro is fantastic.

lot of ppl like it but for some reason, i couldnt get used to it. finally installed windows for this (and a couple of other softwares...)

 

[bhanks]

Alternative to Visio

Lucidchart has an app for the iPad and can import and export visio.

 

[firmansolutions]

Omnigraffle

I bought this about 18months ago for data architecture diagramming in a Windows development shop. Its brilliant and a much better price than Visio. There is also a great one stop shop for free templates at http://graffletopia.com.

You can also export Omnigraffle documents out to Visio. Personally I deployed most of my documents to the business via PDF and embedded JPG files into Word and Keynote docs.

You can also make Omnigraffle documents into interactive presentations.

 

[James_C]

Have the same question. Need an app that will open/edit visio files. More ideas?

OmniGraffle Pro made by OmniGroup can open Microsoft Visio (VSD) files directly in OmniGraffle, along with Visio stencils (VSS) and Visio templates (VST).

It's a great Mac App, and in my opinion is better than Visio. It is available for a 14 day trial.