OmniGraffle

OmniGraffle

OmniGraffle Professional running under Mac OS X.
Developer(s)	The Omni Group
Stable release	5.3.1 / August 17, 2011; 3 months ago (2011-08-17)
Operating system	Mac OS X Leopard, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iPhone OS (iPad)
Type	Charting software
License	Proprietary
Website	OmniGraffle website

OmniGraffle is a diagramming application made by The Omni Group. OmniGraffle is built only for Mac OS X and the iPad. It may be used to create diagrams, flow charts, org charts, and illustrations. It features a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG interface. "Stencils"—groups of shapes to drag and drop—are available as extensions for OmniGraffle, and users can create their own stencils.

In many of these respects, OmniGraffle is similar to Microsoft Visio. The Professional version of OmniGraffle can both import and export Visio files created using Visio's XML export function. OmniGraffle 5 can also open Visio's native binary .vsd files. However, Omnigraffle doesn't provide CAD integration, since it lacks some features such as DWG or DXF (AutoDesk file formats), import/export functions, among others. Also it is important to notice that layers cannot be shared among some versions of Visio and OmniGraffle.

OmniGraffle uses Mac OS X's graphics layer, known as Quartz, and benefits from on-the-fly antialiasing, smooth scaling, transparent drop shadowing, and other features. OmniGraffle 4 added Bézier shapes and text-based hierarchical chart construction to the range of available tools. OmniGraffle 5 added Bézier connecting lines; previously connecting lines were bent to fit between their points which made them relatively easy to create, but difficult to control with any great precision.

OmniGraffle can output to PDF, TIFF, PNG, JPEG, EPS, HTML image map, SVG, Visio XML, PICT vector, Photoshop and BMP bitmap documents. It also allows mental-mapping techniques in organizing information, as well as a style manager, allowing layout of web page prototypes or PDF documents, as well as outlines or brainstorming documents. OmniGraffle uses Apple's plist XML schema to store the data. The extension is .graffle.

According to former Omni Group president Wil Shipley, Graffle "sort of stands for 'graph layout'... but in general it was a nonsense word invented just to counter 'Visio'." ^[1]

See also

• Concept map
• Mind map
• List of concept mapping software
• List of mind mapping software

References

1. ^ http://panic.com/extras/audionstory/popup-graffle.html

External links

• OmniGraffle website
• Documentation for OmniGraffle 4
• Graffletopia: stencils for OmniGraffle