Visio and the Web

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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 2002 represents an evolutionary step forward in the way it incorporates Web technologies. Although Visio 2000 supported the ability to save drawing files as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files, this version of Visio does it better and saves your drawing files in a more robust HTML format backed by XML (eXtensible Markup Language).

newfeature!  When you save a Visio diagram as a Web page, you can take advantage of the following new 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 programmer interface (API) for accessing the Save As Web Page functionality for batch conversion of files.

Visio 2000 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 code behind the Save As Web Page command has been entirely rewritten to solve these issues and to provide a more consistent interface for Microsoft Office users. Visio now supports raster images natively with its new GDI+ display technology, which means drawings simply look better when converted for display on the Web.

Note

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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 5 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.

For details about Visio's support of XML, see "Visio and XML File Formats."

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More Web Options in Visio Professional

Visio Professional can help you make your organization's Web site robust in other ways. 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.

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

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