Visio Standard vs. Visio Pro

[B Taylor]

I have Visio Pro at my office. I'd like to buy the standard edition (pro is
too expensive) for home to work with docs at night. I use Visio for basic web
page site maps and mockups. Nothing too complicated. I'd like to know if 1. I
can open Visio PRO files using the standard edition and 2. Will i be able to
do the same work at home using standard that I do at work on PRO?

Please help.

Tanks
~b

 

[Al Edlund]

I'd start over here for a feature comparison

http://www.microsoft.com/office/visio/prodinfo/editions.mspx

al

 

[btaylor]

Thanks,

I looked through the comparison but it does not state if I can open Visio
PRO docs in Visio STANDARD. Presumably I can but I can't find anywhere
stating that is in fact possible. I just want to make sure before I drop
$200.00 on STANDARD.

Thanks for your feedback
~b

 

[Al Edlund]

the "open" is a conditional yes. The issue is whether the document you are
attempting to open requires one of the addins. That's why the feature
question is so important. Web diagramming is one of those features that may
require you to be at the professional version.
Al

 

[Paul Herber]

Thanks,

I looked through the comparison but it does not state if I can open Visio
PRO docs in Visio STANDARD. Presumably I can but I can't find anywhere
stating that is in fact possible. I just want to make sure before I drop
$200.00 on STANDARD.

Visio Standard will open Visio Pro documents but you may not have
access to the stencils used or any add-on used by Pro. If the
facilities of an add-on were used in Pro then editing in Standard may
break the document.

 

[btaylor]

Thanks for the help!

Visio Standard will open Visio Pro documents but you may not have
access to the stencils used or any add-on used by Pro. If the
facilities of an add-on were used in Pro then editing in Standard may
break the document.

 

[VKY]

I believe you will not be able to use the add-on's functionality but you
will NOT break the document. Whatever that is done by the add-on, you
will have to do it manually, if the add-on is not there.

VKY

 

[Michael Scott]

I have a similar question.

If I create, say a network diagram, which isn't one of the templates
available in standard, will users with standard be able to view the diagram,
complete with shapes?

If they can view the shapes, can they move them around?

With the big price difference, I would like to get some of the support
staff the standard edition, but they sometimes do some formatting for
engineers at the company, and would need to do some basic things with the
diagrams created in professional.

Any help is appreciated.
- Mike Scott

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

You should be able to do most basic manipulations of a Visio Pro diagram
with Visio Standard, they both use the same drawing program. Where is gets
tricky is Visio Pro comes with extra add-ins stored in seperate DLLs that
add extra functionality to the shapes. 99.99% of the time these will not
cause any problems and any modifications with Visio standard should not
degrade the drawing when returned to Visio Pro.

John... Visio MVP

Need stencils or ideas? http://www.mvps.org/visio/3rdparty.htm
Need VBA examples? http://www.mvps.org/visio/VBA.htm
Common Visio Questions http://www.mvps.org/visio/common_questions.htm

 

[Michael Scott]

That answers my question.

Thanks a bunch!

You should be able to do most basic manipulations of a Visio Pro diagram
with Visio Standard, they both use the same drawing program. Where is gets
tricky is Visio Pro comes with extra add-ins stored in seperate DLLs that
add extra functionality to the shapes. 99.99% of the time these will not
cause any problems and any modifications with Visio standard should not
degrade the drawing when returned to Visio Pro.

John... Visio MVP

Need stencils or ideas? http://www.mvps.org/visio/3rdparty.htm
Need VBA examples? http://www.mvps.org/visio/VBA.htm
Common Visio Questions http://www.mvps.org/visio/common_questions.htm