Microsoft Visio Standard 2002

a wealth of new features awaits, with office xp integration high on the agenda. True, visio always worked well with office but now you'll find xp menus, a new task pane, au to-recover, office search and application error reporting added to the list. Note that it also uses microsoft's new xp registration feature and will stop working after 10 goes if you haven't entered an activation code.

a drawing type selector gets you off the starting blocks and you can choose diagram styles ranging from building plans, web site diagrams and process engineering to databases, flow charts and physical or logical network maps. Organisational charts are much improved and a wizard helps to create new charts or import existing information from txt and xls formats or odbc-compliant data sources. The curved wall tool makes creating building layouts more fun and you can import and export drawings in standard cad file formats. Pictures can also be imported directly from a scanner or camera.

if you're serious about your charts and diagrams then visio 2002 standard has everything you could possibly need while the new interface makes it even easier to use.--dave mitchell

what's new and improved in this edition?
• new: microsoft project integration: import dates and tasks from microsoft project to create visio timelines and gantt charts.
• new: timeline and gantt chart interoperability: export dates and milestones in a timeline to create a gantt chart, and vice versa.
• improved: multiple, interchangeable organization chart fields: display an unlimited number of custom properties on organization charts. Users can change which properties are displayed after the diagram has been generated.
• new: 3d directional maps: create maps of small areas and other locations requiring detailed documentation. Office
• new: layout shapes: new shapes represent curved walls and office cubicles.
• improved: office shape resizing: resize office layout shapes using new dimension labels or by specifying custom property values.
• new: office shape behaviour: doors and windows automatically fall into place when dropped on a wall shape.
• new: cad integration: individual cad entities can be converted into visio shapes.