Features

Microsoft Visio 2010 for Windows, is available in three editions: Standard, Professional and Premium. The Standard and Professional editions share the same interface, but the latter has additional templates for more advanced diagrams and layouts, as well as unique capabilities intended to make it easy for users to connect their diagrams to data sources and display their data graphically. The Premium edition features three additional diagram types as well as intelligent rules, validation, and subprocess (diagram breakdown).

File format Native file formats VSD Drawing VSS Stencil VST Template VSW Web drawing VDX XML drawing (Discontinued) VSX XML stencil (Discontinued) VTX XML template (Discontinued) vsdx OPC/XML drawing vsdm OPC/XML drawing, macro-enabled vssx OPC/XML stencil vssm OPC/XML stencil, macro-enabled vstx OPC/XML template vstx OPC/XML template, macro-enabled VSL Add-on Example of diagram created in Microsoft Visio

Visio 2010 and earlier read and write drawings in VSD or VDX file formats. VSD is the proprietary binary file format used in all of the previous version of Visio. VDX is a well-documented XML Schema-based ("DatadiagramML") format. Visio 2013 drops support for writing VDX files in favor of the new VSDX and VSDM file formats. Created based on Open Packaging Conventions (OPC) standard (ISO 29500, Part 2), a VSDX or VSDM file consists of a group of XML files archived inside a Zip file. The only difference between VSDX and VSDM is that VSDM files may contain macros. Since these files are susceptible to macro virus infection, the program enforces strict security on them.

While VSD files use LZW-like lossless compression, VDX is not compressed. Hence, a VDX file is typically 3 to 5 times larger. VSDX and VSDM files use use the same compression as Zip files. Visio 2010 and earlier use VSD by default. Visio 2013 default is VSDX.