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Subject:Re: Tool for drawing technical diagrams From:Katav <katav -at- YAHOO -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 20 Jan 1998 05:20:48 -0800
Visio is fine for simple drag-n-drop work; it is
/the/ standard for this method and many companies
(e.g. HP, Cisco, Bay, etc.) make icons for use
with Visio. The icons (templates) usually are
freely provided by the vendors (the HPs, etc.)
If the graphic is more complicated that Visio easily can accommodate,
in my order of preference:
Deneba Canvas - less overhead and $ than ...
Micrografx Designer/ABC Graphics Suite
Corel Draw
The trouble with Designer is it has become a Draw
look-alike, but I think it still is SLIGHTLY better
for technical graphics than Draw -- you will do well
with any of the above. (I own all three; I have used
Micrografx since In-a-Vision [c: 1985], Draw since
c: 1990 and Canvas is new (started with it in December). My main
problem with CANVAS is lack of a
specific input filter to FrameMaker, Word, etc.
Filters may be a concern for your operation ... if
you can get a direct-into-XYZ filter, so much the
better, but if not, there's always EPS, TIFF, etc.
At one contract job I used FrameMaker's graphic tools ... they were
better than the /real/ tools I had on the client's Mac. For
not-too-complicated work, FrameMaker (V4) was fine.
> At 09:56 AM 1/20/98 +1000, you wrote:
We occasionally draw technical diagrams which are embedded in Word 97
documents. The diagrams don't really fit a standard (such as
electrical diagrams, etc). Currently, we use the Word Picture
functionality to create the diagrams, but find it fiddly and
cumbersome. We have also tried Micrografx ABC Flowcharter and a
really old version of Visio.
What packages are available to create very basic technical diagrams?
Are there any critiques of the packages? Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Kylie
==
Katav ( katav -at- yahoo -dot- com )
Who is wise? He who learns from every person;
Who is honored? He who honors others.
(R. Ben Zoma [Avot 4:1])
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