Microsoft Visio converter

VSDX is the drawing format Microsoft Visio has saved by default since Visio 2013: a ZIP package of XML parts with one part per page, a set of master shapes, a theme and any embedded pictures. VSDM is the same package with a VBA macro project inside. Flowcharts, network maps, org charts, floor sketches and swimlane process maps are the usual contents, and they tend to travel as email attachments to people who have no Visio licence.

Our office engine reads the package, lays out every foreground page at its own size and hands it on as a PDF page, with the tab names kept as PDF bookmarks. Images go one step further: each page is rendered at 144 DPI and zipped when there is more than one. Macros are never run. Hyperlinks between shapes and pages are not carried over, and layers are flattened into a single drawing.

Drawings that use the classic Visio stencils came through close to the original in our tests, connectors and arrowheads included. The weak spot is styling that lives only in the theme: two recent files lost icons, fills or connectors without any error, and gradient fills come out as one flat colour. Fonts are substituted, so Calibri labels are drawn in Liberation Sans or Noto Sans and can wrap a word earlier inside tight boxes.

For binary drawings from Visio 2000 to 2010 use the .vsd converter; it shares the same engine but has its own version limits. Visio stencils and templates (.vssx, .vstx) hold shapes rather than pages and are better opened in Visio or imported into draw.io.