[Ti] [OT] Microsoft Office : PC versus Mac

[David Remahl]

Unfortunately, that is not entirely true. The CEO of the Omni Group had 
this to say on the MacNN forum (note that I haven't verified his 
identity, it could be an imposteror, but the message sounds initiated):

> Uh, if our marketing said that we read "Visio" files and didn't say 
> "XML", then please point it out to me and I'll correct it.
>
> The reason that we don't read Visio VSD files, and the reason that NO 
> diagram program in the entire world does, is that the format is 
> private, undocumented, and darn hard to crack. If Microsoft would give 
> us even a clue as to how it's encoded we'd do it.
>
> We're not total idiots -- in fact, we're the guys who cracked the 
> Microsoft PowerPoint 2.0 binary format for Lighthouse Design "way back 
> when". But Visio VSD is really bizarre.
>
> So until we get some help from Microsoft or have more months to 
> investigate, yes, you have to write your files out as XML. It's easy 
> to set the default in Visio be XML: just go to the options menu and 
> use the fourth or fifth tab, and there's an pop-up for your permanent 
> save format.
>
> It's true most existing files are VSD. It's also true that the point 
> of XML is that it's supposed to be a standard interchange format, so I 
> don't think it's unreasonable for people in a heterogeneous 
> environment to save their files in XML. Clearly even Windows users 
> recognize the benefits of XML, otherwise Microsoft would have had 
> absolutely zero reasons to add it to their Widnows-only product.
>
> I think or Visio import and export are faithful beyond any what most 
> people would hope, and they create fully editable documents on both 
> sides. I'd love to support binary and will do so as soon as I get any 
> idea how.
>
> But, if you feel that you were led astray by our marketing and tricked 
> into spending your money on a license, we will gladly refund it.
>
> Yours,
> -Wil Shipley
> wjs at omnigroup
> President, The Omni Group

So, what he is saying is that OmniGraffle can now import the Visio XML 
format. It can not read the proprietary Visio files.

/ Rgds, David

On Tuesday, April 15, 2003, at 10:49 PM, Neil Cadsawan wrote:

> On Tuesday, April 15, 2003, at 01:38  PM, Paul Russell wrote:
>
>> Be careful - things can get ugly if, e.g. the PC user creates any 
>> embedded drawing objects using Visio, for which is there is no 
>> counterpart on the Mac.
>
> This is no longer true.  With today's release of OmniGraffle 3 Pro, 
> there is now full compatibility for Visio import and export on the 
> Mac.  And it blows away Visio as well. :-)
>
>
> -Neil