Continuing the review of free Open Source programs, after having seen, among others, OpenOffice to have a free alternative to Word Excel and Powerpoint and after seeing the programs to be used to create Gantt for projects and schedules, in this article we see the alternatives Microsoft Visio the program used professionally to create flow charts, relational diagrams, schemes and drawings of networks, circuits, plans and many other types. Microsoft Visio is an application for making diagrams and drawing vector graphics to simplify complex information.
If you can't afford to buy the Visio program, there are many free alternatives available, perhaps not as perfect as Visio, but with almost all of its features.
The open source or free programs are different and in this article we see the best online programs or services that surpass Visio in terms of effectiveness and potential.
1) LibreOffice Draw is the program of the open source LibreOffice suite, free of charge, with tools for making technical and general graphs and diagrams.
You can import images of the most common formats (including BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and WMF).
2) Draw.io is an application for drawing diagrams online, fast, reliable and simple, with many configuration tools, many icons to use in drawings, the possibility of collaborating in real time with other people and sharing widgets.
Draw.io is really simple to use, with all the necessary formatting options such as font, color, style accessible through the menu on the right.
Jobs can be saved to Google Drive.
3) Pencil is a program for Mac, Windows and Linux to create flow charts, graphs and diagrams online.
The graphical interface uses the drag & drop technique with which to drag the various elements available in the work area, insert symbols, and draw the graph.
Project export and save options include SVG, ODT, PDF, PNG files or standard web pages.
4) yED Graph Editor is a very good Visio alternative, not graphically beautiful, but quick and easy to use.
It is a free program, with a few ready-made models, but with all the tools to create graphs, flowcharts and computer network diagrams where you just have to drag and drop the elements to work.
The diagrams can be saved in PDF, JPEG, PNG, SWF and HTML formats.
5) Gliffy is another viable online alternative to Microsoft Visio, with a free Basic account.
The problem is that with the free plan all the diagrams created are marked as public, which may not be the best option.
6) Google drawings to create diagrams and shapes online is simple and free, without limitations and with many powerful functions.
Google documents can be easily shared and it is also possible to work on them together with other people.
7) The best web apps to create flowcharts described in another article allow you to create Visio charts, faster and easier than Microsoft Visio itself.
8) Network Notepad which, as the name suggests, recalls the normal notepad to demonstrate that it is simple only that instead of writing, even very complex logical flows and patterns are drawn there.
Network notepad is particularly suitable for drawing a network of computers with various peripherals, servers, routers and printers connected logically.
An excellent feature is that if you assign the IP address to a truly existing network device, you can also have basic network tools such as ping or telnet.
The basic version does not include the preconfigured icons and drawings of the Cisco network devices which must be downloaded separately.
9) DIA the true antagonist of Microsoft Visio is a powerful and continuously developing program.
With DIA it is possible to create 33 types of diagrams and import / export files in different extensions such as Eps, Svg, Xfig, Wmf, Png and Pdf.
The program is available for both Windows and Linux and supports Italian.
Detailed guides and the download page of the shapes or drawings to be used in the diagrams are available on the DIA website.
10) Other programs for creating flowcharts and graphs are listed in the article on mind maps and online brainstorming.
This article is very connected with the topic " architectural drawing, interior design of buildings and furnishing the home " with many tools for drawing graphics.
