Visio and the Web

Chances are your organization maintains a Web site on the Internet as well as an intranet site for internal communication. When you want to communicate processes, procedures, or other organizational information visually, you can save your Visio diagrams in a Web- compatible format to post on a Web site. Visio 2003 has the ability to save in a robust HTML format backed by XML.

When you save a Visio diagram as a Web page, you can take advantage of the following features:

• The Save As Web Page command on the File menu.

• Multiple shape hyperlinks to other pages, drawings, and URLs.

• A custom properties frame that displays shape data in a Web browser.

• For programmers, a documented application programming interface (API) for accessing the Save As Web Page functionality for batch conversion of files.

Earlier versions of Visio had several shortcomings that made its Save As HTML feature problematic. For some drawing types, the quality of the image maps that Visio created was poor. Large drawings—measured in terms of the number of shapes—sometimes couldn’t be converted to HTML at all. The Save As Web Page command was introduced in Microsoft Office Visio 2002 to solve these issues and to provide a more consistent interface for Office users. Visio now supports raster images natively with its GDI+ display technology, which means drawings simply look better when converted for display on the Web.

Note

Visio no longer includes the option to create server-side image maps, which was a feature in the Export Options dialog box when you saved a Visio 2000 drawing as HTML.

Most of the impressive Save As Web Page options in Visio are compatible with Internet Explorer 6 and later browsers. You can’t count on every viewer getting the full effect. However, those who use other browsers can still see the core of your page—the Visio drawing itself.

Cross Reference

For details about Visio’s support of XML, see “Visio and XML File Formats,” page 616.

More Web Options in Visio Professional

Visio 2003 Professional can help you make your organization’s Web site robust in other ways. For example, the Web Site Map template, included only with Visio Professional, makes it easy to diagram and troubleshoot Web sites on an intranet, Internet, or other network server.

Cross Reference

For details about using Visio to diagram and troubleshoot a Web site, see Chapter 15, “Planning and Mapping Web Sites,” page 393.