Equivalent of Word+Visio's "Click this pic, in doc, launch Visio on it" ?

[khammack]

I'm in a fairly interesting scenario. I just joined an engineering company; most of the engineers are Windows/Linux folks. But it's a very cool place, and they are open to Mac---so open in fact, that once a couple of us got macs the whole lot now wants to switch.

So I'm facing the possibility of working on an all Mac engineering team.

But there are a few hiccups, in particular one of the founders loves the Word + Visio linkup where you can click on a visio pic in a word document and visio launches on it. (That's all I know, because I don't use word or visio).

Most of us are on board with OmniGraffle + Word or NeoOffice Writer. But, and here is my question:

Is it possible to put an OmniGraffle document in a MSWord or NeoOffice Writer document, then double click on the embedded picture and launch OmniGraffle to edit it, so that the file updates in place?


Even an applescript / automator workflow would be great. I'm just looking for some direction from more experienced / advanced Mac users than myself to see if this is possible and what would be the most seamless way to accomplish it.

thanks,
-kev

 

[gekko513]

Have you tried contacting the OmniGroup to see if they have suggestions. My impression is that they are quite passionate about their products, so they might want to help.

Since Office and Visio are both Microsoft products, that level of integration may be hard to replicate.

 

[x86isslow]

I'm in a fairly interesting scenario. I just joined an engineering company; most of the engineers are Windows/Linux folks. But it's a very cool place, and they are open to Mac---so open in fact, that once a couple of us got macs the whole lot now wants to switch.

So I'm facing the possibility of working on an all Mac engineering team.

But there are a few hiccups, in particular one of the founders loves the Word + Visio linkup where you can click on a visio pic in a word document and visio launches on it. (That's all I know, because I don't use word or visio).

Most of us are on board with OmniGraffle + Word or NeoOffice Writer. But, and here is my question:

Is it possible to put an OmniGraffle document in a MSWord or NeoOffice Writer document, then double click on the embedded picture and launch OmniGraffle to edit it, so that the file updates in place?


Even an applescript / automator workflow would be great. I'm just looking for some direction from more experienced / advanced Mac users than myself to see if this is possible and what would be the most seamless way to accomplish it.

thanks,
-kev

I don't think there is a way (yet) to do that, since the current MS Word is old, non-Cocoa code.

I use both OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle, and I do the same linking you describe, where I place a OmniGraffle file inside a OmniOutliner file, so it is definitely possible.

 

[khammack]

Have you tried contacting the OmniGroup to see if they have suggestions. My impression is that they are quite passionate about their products, so they might want to help.

Since Office and Visio are both Microsoft products, that level of integration may be hard to replicate.

Good suggestion; I just emailed support at the omnigroup's domain.

thanks,
-kev

 

[khammack]

Well, according to the Omni Group's tech support it can't be done. Though they had an interesting alternative:

Well, it's not possible to do so with WOrd or NeoOffice, however you can do so with OmniGraffle and Nisus Writer Express, because both apps are leveraging LinkBack, which is a little technology we helped whip up that's very similar to Microsoft's OLE.

You can find out more about LinkBack at <http://linkbackproject.org/>.

We already found LinkBack, but Nisus Writer was summarily rejected by engineering for some reason. Pity.

-kev

 

[CanadaRAM]

Gee, I just had a flashback to System 7
"Publish and Subscribe"...

 

[eddietr]

Gee, I just had a flashback to System 7
"Publish and Subscribe"...

Remember OpenDoc?

 

[CanadaRAM]

Remember OpenDoc?

Yea, it had its 15 seconds of fame...