What to open old Visio files with?

[Josh T]

I was emailed a bunch of Visio files and two of them would not open with
the Visio 2003 viewer because they were "created with an unsupported
version of Microsoft Office Visio." Do I have any options to be able to
view these - they have a "Copyright 1995 Visio Corporation" string
embedded in the files so I'm guessing they are Visio 4.0?

Thanks,
Josh

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

The Visio viewer is limited, but any version of Visio can open any Visio
file file created in a previous version (even back to version 1.0)

If you do not have a copy of Visio, find someone who can save them for you
in a different format or as a version supported by the viewer.

<useless info>
The message is slightly misleading. The viewer works with all versions of
Microsoft version, but will not work with the older versions of Visio
created by Visio Corp.(which technically are not versions of "Microsoft"
Visio)
</useless info>

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

 

[Josh T]

The Visio viewer is limited, but any version of Visio can open any Visio
file file created in a previous version (even back to version 1.0)

If you do not have a copy of Visio, find someone who can save them for you
in a different format or as a version supported by the viewer.

No, I don't have a copy of Visio and I'm not going to pay for it. I'll
see if the original sender can convert them to a PDF or a image or
something.

Thanks,
Josh