Microsoft Visio 2019 Standard Features

View your drawings on the go with Visio Online

More and more people utilize the cloud on a daily basis. Visio 2019 Standard allows you to view your diagrams in the cloud by using nothing but a web browser. This is possible thanks to Visio Online, which is a service available to all users with an Office 365 subscription. View your diagrams on the go from any device using a native web browser. This feature is beneficial to those who often present their work in front of an audience, as it completely eliminates the hassle of exporting and importing Visio files.

This feature is also helpful to view other people’s drawings as well. If you receive a Visio file in Outlook, you can immediately view it in your browser without having to download it first. The Microsoft team is also working on bringing editing into the web-based interface sometime in the future, further enhancing the capabilities of Visio Online.

Use templates for a headstart

Sometimes we need to get things done quickly, which templates can help you with. The use of templates became popular as people are looking to accomplish great results in a short amount of time. Templates can help you start a project, or give you design ideas and solutions to progress faster. Visio 2019 Standard comes with a large library of templates in plenty of different categories to assure you find what you’re looking for, or at least something similar. Additionally, users have access to new starter diagrams in the Organization Chart, Brainstorming and SDL templates.

Wireframe templates for website and application designs

If your speciality is creating website or application designs, your life is about to get much easier with Visio 2019 Standard. You’re able to create wireframes for your website or application designs which act as the blueprint of your user interface, functionality, and content. Designers can plan ahead in an effective manner on both desktop and mobile platforms, with corresponding wireframe templates for each platform. These templates are perfect for presenting ideas and carefully planning out the layout and functionality of your projects.

When choosing to work with Wireframe templates, you can either start a blank drawing or pick a starter drawing to get you going faster. Within each template, you can find five stencils: controls, containers, text, media, and navigation. Each stencil is a pre-formed group of shapes and smart shapes, making it quick and easy to work with the wireframe. Smart shapes are fully customizable, as they’re linked to control points and right-click menu actions. This lets you modify numeric values, ranges, and visual styles with ease.

Each Wireframe template can be used for different browsers and mobile devices, as they’re purposely made generic and easy to customize for your very own needs. Visio 2019 Standard also comes with 8 different templates and starter diagrams for wireframes, which all offer a different look and different functionality. Choose which one you prefer and begin designing your next website or app within seconds of opening Visio!

New UMI tools

New UMI tools are also available with the 2019 version of the Microsoft Visio Standard. UML Component Diagrams show components, ports, required and provided interfaces, and relationships between them, and with the new UML Communication Diagrams help to show you how objects would interact with others in a sequenced format. Its primary focus is on object relationships.

On communication diagrams, objects are shown with association connectors between them. There’s also a new UML Deployment Diagram which provides a model about the physical development of artifacts on nodes. For example, if you wanted to describe a website, a deployment diagram would present the hardware components that exist, what software components run on each node, and how the different pieces are connected with each other.

Communicate with your team and share your projects easier

In-app communication with Visio 2019 Standard gives you the opportunity to write or read comments on other people’s works that have been shared with you. Comments allow you to share your thoughts with your team or relevant stakeholders a whole lot easier. You can also reply to comments, and associate them with specific diagram shapes, making it easier to distinguish them from the actual project. Ask and answer questions, start discussions or give your team ideas, all within Visio itself.

Sharing your work with others and editing alongside the members of your team has never been easier before Visio 2019 Standard. The added co-editing tools make it possible for multiple people to work on the same project at once. You can easily share diagrams directly from Visio, add shape-specific comments and even add in-app presence through the Skype for Business service.

All of these communication and sharing features aim to make your team work better, while also increasing the ability to share files outside your team.

Enhanced AutoCAD support

In addition to all of these updates and new features, Microsoft has updated their AutoCAD support. They enhanced it by being able to import and/or open files from AutoCAD version 2017 or prior. You will also see scaling improvements whenever you import these files, but you’d have to set a couple of properties first.

For example, in AutoCAD, make sure that the active tab is a layout tab and not a model tab. You should also make sure that the Visio drawing scale is set to the same scale as the AutoCAD viewport scale. Not only that, but importing such files will be a lot faster with the new update, and thankfully, no delays when working with shapes on top of CAD files.