Icon Visio 2007 Icon

By Dale Farris, Reviews Coordinator
Golden Triangle PC Club
April 2007

Once again, Microsoft updates their flagship symbol and shape drawing program, Visio. This latest release of Visio 2007 represents Microsoft's continued support of this super drawing tool that is found in many major businesses around the world.

Sold separately from Microsoft Office 2007, when you install Visio 2007, if you already have Office 2007 on your machine, Visio 2007 will be included in the Office menu group on your Programs Menu.

Microsoft Office Visio 2007 makes it easy for IT and business professionals to visualize, explore, and communicate complex information. Go from complicated text and tables that are hard to understand to Visio diagrams that communicate information at a glance. Use the wide variety of diagrams in Office Visio 2007 to understand, act on, and share information about organizational systems, resources, and processes throughout your enterprise. For example, you can create diagrams to analyze business data, streamline business processes, schedule projects, visualize thought processes, chart your organization, and visualize your network infrastructures, floor plans, facilities equipment, electrical circuits, software systems, and database structures.

Two Editions of Visio 2007

Office Visio 2007 is available in two stand-alone editions, including Office Visio Professional 2007 and Office Visio Standard 2007. The Standard edition has the same basic functionality as Visio Professional, but is a subset of its features and templates. Office Visio Professional includes advanced functionality, such as data connectivity and visualization features, that Office Visio Standard does not.

The key uses of Visio include visualizing complex information to better understand it, exploring information to identify key trends and insights and act on them, and to communicate by using diagrams that can be shared with a broad audience. The fundamental power of Visio is the concept of visually displaying and communicating information using shapes and symbols. This powerful approach to learning and communicating is what makes any drawing tool an effective communication tool, as most people more readily respond to pictorial displays of information than they do the raw data. Using Microsoft Office Visio 2007, you can visualize complex information to better understand it by using a wide range of diagrams—business process flowcharts, network diagrams, work flow diagrams, database models, and software diagrams, to name just a few.

 Office Visio Professional 2007

Professionals in IT, engineering, and software development benefit from the diagramming solutions targeted toward those specific domain needs in Office Visio Professional 2007. Business professionals who want to link any diagram to business data can also benefit from the new Data Link functionality in Office Visio Professional 2007.

Office Visio Professional 2007 includes all of the business diagramming tools included in Office Visio Standard 2007, plus additional comprehensive technical solutions and advanced functionality. Use Office Visio Professional 2007 to create high-value diagrams by using features, templates, and solutions such as:

Data Link and Data Graphics functionality
Integrate data with diagrams to combine disparate sources of complex visual, textual, and numeric information in order to provide visual context for data and create a complete picture of a system, resource, or process. Display data fields as callouts next to a shape, position fields in boxes below a shape, or show symbols that represent data.

PivotDiagram template
Visualize and explore your business data in hierarchical form showing data groups and subtotals. Identify the key messages in your data and visually communicate them with others in your organization.

Value Stream Map template
Create diagrams based on Lean Methodology and visualize manufacturing processes to facilitate efficiency gains.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) template
Diagram IT service processes that conform to ITIL standards.

Network diagram templates
Diagram logical and physical network diagrams, including rack diagrams.

Web development templates
Create site maps of existing Web sites using templates and predefined shapes. Generate reports of site links, including broken links, or use reporting tools to identify changes in a site since it was last diagrammed.

Software development templates
Diagram custom software solutions using the Microsoft Windows XP User Interface template, Unified Modeling Language (UML) template, and more.

Architectural plans, engineering schematics, facilities management, and database modeling
Create various technical diagrams, such as floor, space, and site plans; engineering schematics; facilities management diagrams; database models; and many more. Office Visio Professional 2007 even includes functionality that enables you to reverse-engineer database models and software solutions.

Office Visio Standard 2007

Office Visio Standard 2007 is best for business users who need to visualize, document, communicate, and share ideas using professional-looking flowcharts, office layouts, organization charts, project timelines, and more. Many features in Office Visio Standard 2007 streamline diagramming tasks to improve productivity and help you communicate more effectively.

Brainstorm ideas.
Export brainstorming diagrams to Microsoft Office Word documents in outline form to easily organize and communicate ideas generated in meetings.

Chart your organization.
Insert pictures and dotted-line relationships into organization charts to show employee pictures and important reporting structures.

Schedule activities.
Generate calendars by importing Outlook calendar data into Office Visio 2007 for easy viewing and reference.

Track project progress.
Split activities among multiple timelines and synchronize them for clearer illustrations.

Visualize your business processes.
Use specific tools and diagram types to support any business process documentation effort.

Personal Experience With Visio

I have been using Visio since its early entry as a 16-bit application in the old Windows 3.1 days, and I continue to marvel at its power and functionality when needing to create complex flowcharts. I have used Visio to create simple, 6-12 shape diagrams, as well as more complicated, 50-60 shape diagrams with various sub-levels of symbols. Most of my diagrams have usually been used as tools by quality improvement teams assigned to simplify or streamline key internal processes that output products or services for external customers. As is usually the case, these team members begin their participation in these kinds of improvement efforts with little understanding of the steps in the process performed by other staff. When these teams begin to see the entire process, then they begin to also understand their process from the perspective of their key external customers. Using Visio has many, many times helped me help quality improvement team members better understand their entire process, and this visualization of processes is one of the most powerful results of using Visio.

I have also used Visio to create conceptual diagrams of quality improvement functions throughout entire organizations, and to convey high level executive strategies and philosophies toward customer services, quality processes, and the integration of these high level commitments throughout an entire organization. I have also used Visio to help explain complex theories and ideas similar to figures and diagrams that commonly accompany college level textbooks, as well as professional peer reviewed journals.

I have also many times saved a ton of time with Visio's many tools that help you quickly clean up a drawing or diagram, and neatly arrange shapes in a drawing, as well as neatly center a drawing on a page. The program also provides powerful scaling features that I have used many times to arrange a large, complex drawing onto a selected page. The program will allow you to arrange a drawing for printing onto standard letter-size paper, as well as legal-size, and even larger sizes for when you need to really blow up a drawing on paper for a large group to see. I quickly learned these many tools because invariably when I would complete a diagram or flowchart and print out the results, I would have to deal with irrelevant questions such as "Why are the boxes not all the same size?," or "Why are the shapes not all on the same level?" So, instead of having to waste time with these trivial time wasters, I learned to integrate into my drawing time the use of Visio's many shape and page arranging / setup tools to focus on the meaning of the drawing and not the look of the drawing when printed on paper. These tools will likely be just as important to most all users, especially if they are producing final output drawings that will be used in team meetings, executive leadership meetings, or board meetings.

This latest edition of Visio continues to build even more power into its symbol and shape technology and its connective tools, making it even more efficient than previous editions.

Get Started Quickly with Templates

You begin an Office Visio 2007 diagram with a template. Template files open a drawing page and a Shapes window that contains stencils from which you drag shapes and drop these shapes on the page to create your diagram. This now classic drag-and-drop feature, so common in so many drawing tool programs, is what I think really helped Visio shine when it was first released many years ago. At the time of its initial entry into the world of business, this drag-and-drop power was only available in Visio. With this now available in so many other programs, this attests to the importance of this time-saving, valuable feature.

A template also includes the styles, tools, and other settings appropriate for the diagram type. For example, to create a basic flowchart, open the Basic Flowchart template, which includes flowchart shapes and arrowhead line styles appropriate for many types of flowcharts. Then drag flowchart shapes from the stencils in the Shapes window onto the drawing page to create the flowchart. Find just the right template to fit your needs in Microsoft Office Visio 2007 by using the simplified diagram categories, such as Basic, Business, Flowchart, Network, or Schedule. Easily access the templates you use often and open a variety of sample diagrams to get ideas for creating your own diagrams. You can also create a broader range of diagrams in Microsoft Office Visio 2007 with new templates, such as the PivotDiagram and Value Stream Map templates. Create more dynamic workflows with new 3-D Workflow shapes that open with stencils in the Workflow Diagram template.

Connect Shapes Without Drawing Connectors

The next powerful function in Visio its ability to help you connect the shapes together. Diagrams such as flowcharts, organization charts, block diagrams, network diagrams, and Web diagrams that you can create in Microsoft Office Visio 2007 all have one thing in common: connections. In Office Visio 2007, you create these connections by attaching, or gluing, one-dimensional shapes called connectors to two-dimensional shapes. Then, when you move the connected shapes, the connectors stay glued to the shapes. For example, when you move a flowchart shape, the connector automatically repositions itself to keep its endpoints glued to the shape.

The new AutoConnect functionality in the 2007 Microsoft Office system takes all the work out of connecting shapes. This new functionality automatically connects, evenly distributes, and aligns shapes for you—with only a couple of easy clicks. AutoConnect works with the following new methods for connecting shapes. The method you choose depends on your work style preference and the state of your diagram:

• Connect shapes as you drag them onto the drawing page

• Connect shapes as you click a shape on a stencil in the Shapes window

• Connect shapes that are already on the drawing page

• Connect shapes as you click a shape on a stencil in the Shapes window

• Connect shapes that are already on the drawing page

Explore Information to Identify Trends and Issues and Act on Them

By using Microsoft Office Visio 2007, you can visually explore, analyze, drill down into, and create multiple views of business data to gain deeper insight into the information. Easily identify key issues, track trends, and flag exceptions using a library of shapes that are designed specifically for visually tracking data.

Easily Connect Data to Diagrams and Link Data to Shapes

Integrating data with Office Visio 2007 diagrams has always been one of the most powerful and useful features in Office Visio 2007. Microsoft Office Visio 2007 takes data connectivity even further by making it much easier and faster to connect a data source to any diagram—such as a flowchart, organization chart, network diagram, or facilities management diagram—created with any version of Office Visio 2007. Automatically connect diagrams to data sources, such as worksheets in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and databases in Microsoft Office Access 2007 by using the new Data Selector wizard. You can even link diagrams to more than one data source. For example, you might have a worksheet that you want link to the employee shapes in a diagram, and a database table you want to link to the equipment shapes in the same diagram so that you can demonstrate the ratio of employees to equipment.

When you link data to shapes in a diagram, Office Visio 2007 automatically populates the properties (also known as shape data) for each shape with its corresponding data. To see all the properties for a shape and corresponding data values, right-click a shape on the drawing page, and then, on the shortcut menu, click Properties. Or, on the View menu, click Shape Data Window to display the window. Then click a shape to see its shape data in the Shape Data window.

Display Data Attractively in Diagrams

When you link data to shapes, Office Visio 2007 displays the data on the drawing page using a default data graphic—a shape designed specifically for viewing data in diagrams. Viewing the data on the drawing page with shapes means you can more easily visualize and understand the data. In addition, you can see the data when you print your diagram and incorporate it into other documents and presentations, such as those created in Microsoft Office Word 2007 and the Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation graphics program.

You can also easily change the default graphic used to display the data in the diagram. With the new Data Graphics task pane, you can choose from a number of data formatting options or create your own data graphics. For example, display data fields as callouts, text, data bars, or icons and use color-coding to identify trends and issues.

Visualize and Explore Business Data

Explore business data that is normally shown in static text and tables by using a new diagram type in Microsoft Office Visio 2007—PivotDiagram, which is a collection of shapes arranged in a tree structure that helps you analyze and summarize data in a visual, easy-to-understand format. To create a PivotDiagram, open the PivotDiagram template to start the Data Selector wizard. The wizard guides you through connecting the diagram to a data source. As the wizard finishes, it creates a top (or root) node, called the Pivot Node, that is linked to all the data in the data source and places the node on the drawing page. You can then expand the Pivot Node to show various levels of sub-nodes that correspond to the data you want to analyze.

Identify Issues, Track Trends, and Flag Exceptions

With Microsoft Office Visio 2007, you can rapidly highlight key issues, trends, and exceptions, and depict the progress of a project, turning Visio diagrams into powerful tracking tools. The new Data Graphics task pane makes conditional formatting easy with good-looking, intuitive shapes such as flags, data bars, warning icons, and signals that can be displayed based on user-defined conditions. For example, you can show variable data as progress bars, represent data that increases or decreases with arrows, and view rankings as stars. You do not need to format any of this yourself; you need only specify the data conditions under which the tracking shapes appear. Office Visio 2007 does the formatting for you. The result is a unique, professional-looking diagram that communicates a wealth of up-to-date information and makes the data much easier to understand and track.

Communicate Using Diagrams That Can Be Shared with a Broad Audience

Using Microsoft Office Visio 2007, you can communicate effectively with diagrams to maximize the impact on your audience in ways that you cannot by using words and numbers alone. Share professional-looking Office Visio 2007 diagrams with anyone, even those who do not have Office Visio 2007, in more file formats.

Collaborate Using Office Visio 2007 Diagrams

Coworkers who use SharePoint Web sites to collaborate can incorporate Visio diagrams into that collaborative process. With Office Visio 2007, diagrams saved in a Windows SharePoint Services workspace can be opened directly in Office Visio 2007 from the Document Management task pane. A shared workspace is an area, hosted by a Web server, where colleagues can share documents and information, maintain lists of pertinent data, and keep each other up-to-date on the status of a given project. When you open a Visio diagram that is stored in a document library in a Windows SharePoint Services workspace, Office Visio 2007 opens the Document Management task pane that contains all of the information in the workspace, including other files, members, tasks, and links.

Track Revisions and Comments in Visio Diagrams

The Track Markup feature in Microsoft Office Visio 2007 enables multiple people to collaborate on the same Visio diagram. Generally used for reviewing a diagram and incorporating feedback, the feature helps make each reviewer’s contributions clearer to other reviewers and to the person who later incorporates the revisions back into the original file.

What's New in Version 2007?

Get started quickly
You can find just the right template by using the new Getting Started window in Office Visio 2007.

Simpler template categories
It is now easier to find just the right template because of simpler template categories, such as Business, Flowchart, Network, Schedule, and so on.

Large template previews
Large thumbnail previews and descriptions of each template help you to quickly identify the templates that are best for your diagrams.

Featured templates
The most popular Visio templates within each category are now displayed at the top of each category view, so that you can quickly find them.

Recent templates list
Visio now includes a new shortcut for opening your most-recently used templates, so that you can get to your favorites more quickly.

Sample diagrams (requires Office Visio Professional 2007)
You can now browse new sample diagrams and data sources to get ideas for creating your own data-driven diagrams.

Create professional-looking diagrams easily
The new Themes feature in Office Visio 2007 takes the guesswork out of choosing colors and effects. Now you can give your diagram the professional touch with one click of the mouse.

Theme Colors
Choose from a set of professionally designed, built-in theme colors, or create your own color scheme to match your company logo and branding. The theme colors that come with Visio match the theme colors in other 2007 Microsoft Office system programs, such as PowerPoint and Word.

Theme Effects
Make your drawings more visually consistent and appealing by applying a unified set of design elements for fonts, fills, shadows, lines, and connectors.

New templates and shapes
Quickly create a broader range of diagrams by using new templates, such as the PivotDiagram, Value Stream Map, and ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) templates. (All of these require Office Visio Professional 2007.) You can also create more dynamic workflows by using the new Work Flow shapes in the Work Flow Diagram template. The Work Flow shapes have a new isometric 3-D style to make your diagrams look better than ever.

Connect shapes in diagrams by using AutoConnect
The new AutoConnect feature in Office Visio 2007 takes the work out of connecting shapes. This new feature automatically connects, evenly distributes, and accurately aligns shapes for you, and requires only a couple of clicks.

Connect shapes as you drag them onto the drawing page
When you rest the pointer over a shape on the drawing page, you will notice that blue arrows appear around the shape. When you drag another shape onto one of the blue connection arrows, Visio automatically connects the two shapes, distributes them evenly, and aligns them for you.

Connect shapes after you click a shape on a stencil
There is also now an even faster way to connect shapes. Select a shape in the Shapes window, rest the pointer over a shape on the drawing page, and then click the blue connection arrow on the side of the shape that you want to connect to. Visio automatically adds and connects the shape, distributes it evenly, and aligns it for you. In this way, you can quickly connect a whole series of shapes, such as those in a flowchart.

Connect shapes that are already on the drawing page
You can even automatically connect two shapes that are both already on the drawing page. Simply click the blue connection arrow on one shape that is closest to the other shape that you want to connect it to.

Integrate data into diagrams (requires Office Visio Professional 2007)
Office Visio 2007 now takes data connectivity even further by making it much easier and faster to connect a data source to any diagram — flowchart, organization chart, network diagram, space plan, and so on — that is created by using any version of Visio. You can automatically connect diagrams to a wide range of external data sources. A new Data menu and Data toolbar keep everything that you need within reach.

Easily connect diagrams to commonly used data sources
Integrate data into your diagrams by letting the new Data Selector Wizard guide you through the task of connecting to Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft SQL Server, and other commonly used external data sources. You can select custom data ranges, filter the data that you want to import, and even link diagrams to more than one data source.

View data from within Visio
After you have connected your data to your diagram, you can view the data by using the new External Data window.

Build your diagram by dragging rows of data onto a blank drawing page
Select a shape in the Shapes window, and then drag a row of data from the new External Data window onto the drawing page. Visio simultaneously adds the shape to the page and associates the data with the shape.

Link data to individual shapes in existing diagrams
Drag a row of data from the new External Data window onto a shape in your diagram to manually link the data to the shape. After you link data to a shape, you can see the data in the newly renamed Shape Data window (formerly called the Custom Properties window).

Automatically link data to shapes
Save time by using the new Automatic Link Wizard to link the shapes in a Visio diagram to rows of data in an external data source.

Easily refresh all of the data in your diagram
Use the new Refresh Data feature to automatically refresh the data in your diagram — no manual reentry required. Easily deal with any conflicts in the new Refresh Conflicts task pane. You can even schedule the refresh so that it happens automatically as often as you want it to.

Show off your data in data graphics (requires Office Visio Professional 2007)
Integrating data into diagrams is only the first step in transforming your diagrams into powerful tracking tools. Now, with Office Visio 2007, you can more easily display and customize the look of data in your diagrams to help get your message across.

In the new Data Graphics task pane, just click the format that presents the data the way that you want it in your diagram. You can use progress bars for variable data, arrows for data that increases or decreases, and stars for ranked data. You don’t need to format any of this yourself — Visio handles the formatting for you.

Also, data values can now control the color and appearance of a shape. You don’t need to format them yourself, either. You need only specify the conditions under which the formatting appears.

Visualize complex information by using PivotDiagrams (requires Office Visio Professional 2007)
Office Visio 2007 provides a new type of diagram — the PivotDiagram. PivotDiagrams show data as a collection of shapes arranged in a tree-like structure that helps you to analyze and summarize data in a visual, easy-to-understand format. Using PivotDiagrams, you can visually explore your business data, analyze it, drill down into it, and create multiple views of it to gain deeper insight into the information. Easily identify key issues, track trends, and flag exceptions by using a library of shapes that are designed specifically for tracking data. You can even insert a PivotDiagram into any other Visio diagram to provide a complementary view of the data.

To create a PivotDiagram, you open the PivotDiagram template, and the Data Selector wizard starts immediately. The wizard guides you through each step of connecting the diagram to a data source, and then creates what is called a pivot node that is linked to all of the data in the data source. You can expand the pivot node to show various levels that correspond to the data that you want to analyze.

Generate and view Visio diagrams in other 2007 Microsoft Office system programs
Collaborate with colleagues in new ways by generating visual reports — in PivotDiagram form — right from a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services site and Microsoft Office Project 2007. Share your diagrams with people who don’t have Visio, and let them preview your diagrams in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

Generate Visio PivotDiagrams within Microsoft Office Project
In Project, you can now report on resource and task data. (Requires Microsoft Office Project 2007)

Generate Visio PivotDiagrams from SharePoint lists
From SharePoint lists, you can now report on issues and tasks and track workflow. (Requires a SharePoint site)

View Visio diagrams attached to e-mail messages
In Outlook, you can now preview Visio diagrams attached to e-mail even if you don’t have Visio installed. (Requires Microsoft Office Outlook 2007)

Reach a wider audience
With Office Visio 2007, you can now communicate more effectively and reach a wider audience with your diagrams.

Save Visio diagrams in PDF and XPS file formats
Easily share your Visio diagrams with everyone, including people who don’t have Microsoft Office, by saving your diagrams in the following formats:

Portable Document Format (PDF) PDF is a fixed-layout electronic file format that preserves document formatting and enables file sharing. The PDF format ensures that when the file is viewed online or printed, it retains exactly the format that you intended, and that data in the file cannot be easily copied or changed. The PDF format is also useful for documents that will be reproduced by using commercial printing methods.

XML Paper Specification (XPS) XPS is an electronic file format that preserves document formatting and enables file sharing. The XPS format ensures that when the file is viewed online or printed, it retains exactly the format that you intended, and that data in the file cannot be easily copied or changed. Note You can save as a PDF or XPS file from a 2007 Microsoft Office system program only after you install an add-in.

Prevent people from viewing sensitive information in your Visio diagrams
Remove comments, reviewer markups, and other types of personal information.

Minimize the size of Visio drawing files
Remove information that you don’t need anymore, such as drawing previews, unused master shapes, and unused themes.

Diagnose computer problems
Microsoft Office Diagnostics is a series of diagnostic tests that can help you to discover why your computer is crashing. The diagnostic tests can solve some problems directly and may identify ways that you can solve other problems. Microsoft Office Diagnostics replaces the following Microsoft Office 2003 features: Detect and Repair and Microsoft Office Application Recovery.

Check your work
The following are some new features of the spelling checker:

The spelling checker has been made more consistent across the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs. Examples of this change include: Several spelling checker options are now global. If you change one of these options in one Office program, that option is also changed for all the other Office programs. For more information, see Change the way spelling and grammar checking work. In addition to sharing the same custom dictionaries, all programs can manage them using the same dialog box. For more information, see Use custom dictionaries to add words to the spelling checker. The 2007 Microsoft Office system spelling checker includes the post-reform French dictionary. In Microsoft Office 2003, this was an add-in that had to be separately installed. For more information, see Change the way spelling and grammar checking work. An exclusion dictionary is automatically created for a language the first time that language is used. Exclusion dictionaries let you force the spelling checker flag words you want to avoid using. They are handy for avoiding words that are obscene or that don't match your style guide.

 Street Prices

$559.95 - Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Professional - Retail
$359.95 - Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Professional - Upgrade

$249.95 - Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Standard - Retail
$129.95 - Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Standard - Upgrade

If you do qualify for and wish to buy the upgrade version of Visio 2007, be sure you understand that this means you are not getting the full version of Visio 2007. You are getting an upgrade version that is specifically designed to look for other required Microsoft products already loaded on a PC. This also means that when your machine crashes and you have to reload an OS and all your applications, you cannot just install the upgrade Visio 2007 on the repaired machine. You will first have to reinstall whatever prior Microsoft product you selected to qualify for the upgrade version of Visio 2007, and then load the upgrade version of Visio 2007.

I strongly advise all readers considering any version of Visio 2007 to go ahead and buy the full retail price product. This way, you will always have what you need in the future when your machine crashes.

System Configuration Requirements for Visio 2007

 To use Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007 or Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2007, you will need:

500MHz or faster processor
Windows XP (SP2), Windows Server 2003 (SP1) or later
256MB RAM (more recommended)
1.5GB free hard disk space
A portion of this disk space will be freed after installation if the original download package is removed from the hard drive
CD ROM or DVD drive
1024 X 768 or higher display

Connectivity to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with SP1 or later running Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services is required for certain advanced collaboration functionality. Visual Reports require Visio Professional 2007 and Project 2007, Excel 2007 or Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3/Office SharePoint Server 2007

Certain inking features require running Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition or later

Speech recognition functionality requires a close-talk microphone and audio output device

IE 6 or later - 32 bit browser only

Internet functionality requires Internet access (fees may apply).

Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration and operating system.

The Office Clean-up wizard not available on 64 bit OS.

Note that the above system requirements are the minimum system requirements to run Visio 2007. I strongly suggest anyone considering running Visio 2007 to install it on as high end a system as you can afford. If you want to maximize the many powerful functions of Visio 2007, you will realize far better performance if you run this program on a fast machine with a lot of RAM. If you install Visio 2007 on a machine that already has Office 2007 installed, then obviously you will be able to realize the powerful integration of Visio with the other applications in Office 2007. This will also be more efficient and will operate faster on higher end machines. Also, note that the team / collaborative functionality of Visio 2007 Professional will require server side software to be running on the server.

The installation should present no problems on higher end machines. On lower end machines, just be sure your machine meets at least the above minimum requirements. If your machine does barely meet these requirements, then you might have to be more careful about closing other applications when running Visio 2007, or any other application.

What Should You Do?
Although sold separately from Office 2007, Visio 2007 is actually another important application that Microsoft considers part of its overall office group of applications. Even though separated in the purchase process, when Visio 2007 is installed on a machine that already has Office 2007, it will nicely integrate within all these other Office applications. This blending of functionality with other Office 2007 applications is probably one of the more important reasons to consider adding Visio 2007 to your collection of software. This newest 2007 edition of Visio continues to impress with its powerful usefulness as a component of all the Office 2007 applications.

So, if you have already moved to the new Office 2007 programs, then I strongly suggest adding Visio 2007 as an essential part of your total Office commitment. In addition, Visio can be more selectively considered for networked machines, since it may be more useful to selected, specialized functions in a company. While just about all the Office 2007 suite of programs will likely be used by just about everyone in an organization, Visio may not be as frequently applied, which is why I think Microsoft continues to not include Visio in the Office suite. Not everybody who uses Word or Excel may also need Visio.

However, any organization who has a strong commitment to the various quality improvement processes, Six Sigma, Lean, or other related continuous improvement functions will want to consider Visio as their drawing tool of choice. Since Office is so resoundingly found on just about all PCs in the world, it makes sense to consider Visio as the tool of choice, because it will work best with all the other Office applications.

Note that many of the more powerful features found in the Professional version of Visio 2007 will require server side software as well. So, any organization also already committed to these server applications will certainly realize maximum results from Visio Professional, versus if they considered installing the Professional version on a stand-alone machine, or even a few machines in a networked environment.

With this latest 2007 edition of Visio, Microsoft has continued to pack more powerful features into an already amazing program. The use of Vision 2007 in a networked setting with the requisite server side software will also amaze users who need to collaborate on diagrams and link data to their drawing. As you would expect, when applications continue to become even more powerful, this also presents a more complex challenge for users who may still be a novice at using these types of drag-and-drop drawing programs. Visio also is the shape / symbol drawing program with a strong commitment to the business environment.

For those who may be new to these programs, or who wish to work with such an application on a stand-alone home machine, I suggest they consider starting first with the SmartDraw software. The SmartDraw folks have created an impressive application that operates in a similar manner, and that has a more retail, home computer market in mind. After novices have become comfortable using SmartDraw, then they may be ready to move up to Visio. SmartDraw will support exporting / importing Visio files.

Of course, many users of Visio in businesses or other organizations are perfectly at ease starting out with Visio, because Visio is packed with very impressive Help features, and its fundamental, drag-and-drop power is really easy for anyone to learn.

Contact

Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, Washington 98052-6399
1-800-642-7676
FAX 425-936-7329
www.microsoft.com
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx