Visio Professional 2003 Improves Productivity and Communication by Helping You

The Microsoft® Office diagramming program for engineers

Microsoft® Office Visio® Professional 2003 is a diagramming program that helps engineers effectively document, design, and communicate ideas, processes, and systems. Through integration with other Microsoft Office System programs and services, Visio Professional 2003 makes it easy to reuse and share information contained in diagrams.

With Visio Professional 2003 engineers can increase productivity when working with new or existing data and create powerful diagrams to communicate ideas and processes more effectively.

A flexible productivity tool

Visio Professional 2003 improves productivity and communication by helping you:

Develop electrical engineering diagrams

Use the Electrical Engineering templates in Visio Professional 2003 to create a wide range of diagram types including schematic, circuit, and logic diagrams.

Document mechanical systems

With the Mechanical Engineering templates you can document hydraulic or pneumatic control systems such as those used in factory automation, heavy machinery, and automobile suspension systems as well as in part and assembly drawings.

Support existing CAD files

Insert or convert existing auto CAD files and drawings to Visio 2003 diagrams. Once you convert the auto CAD drawing to a Visio 2003 diagram, you can drag Visio shapes onto the drawing, hide or show layers, redline drawings, change the drawing scale, and crop and pan the inserted drawing.

Manage processes using flowcharts

Easily illustrate and manage complex design and production processes using the Flowchart and Business Process templates.

Communicate project milestones

Communicate important dates and milestones in Visio Professional 2003 diagrams, and reinforce progression toward a deadline with timelines.

Electrical engineering diagrams

Create Electrical Engineering diagrams for basic electrical schematics, integrated circuit components, industrial control systems, and general electrical systems.

Get a quick start using templates

The Electrical Engineering templates in Visio Professional 2003, including Basic Electrical, Integrated Circuit Components, Industrial Control Systems, and Systems, provide stencils with custom shapes to help you get started on your drawings.

Add custom properties

Use SmartShapes® in Visio Professional 2003 to embed intelligence by entering custom property values and adding new properties to any shape.

Make connections easily

When you move shapes close together with the Connector tool, Visio Professional 2003 automatically snaps them together. Connections are maintained even when shapes are moved, and lines route intelligently.

Above: Examples of electrical engineering systems diagrams that can be created using Visio 2003.

Above: Converting a CAD drawing to Visio 2003.

Mechanical engineering diagrams

Create mechanical engineering diagrams used in factory automation systems, heavy machinery, or automobile suspension systems.

Design efficiently with templates

Get a quick start by selecting a drawing type—Fluid Power or Part and Assembly Drawing—in Visio Professional 2003. These templates open a drawing page that you can customize.

Document manufacturing processes

Employ the Process Engineering templates to document manufacturing processes and related equipment, controls, and instrumentation.

Use the perfect shape

For fluid systems, simply drag equipment and valve shapes onto the page. For part and assembly drawings, Visio Professional 2003 offers an extensive array of shapes, fasteners, springs, bearings, and welding symbols to which you can add dimensions and other data. You can also custom configure many shapes.

Make connections easily

Shapes in Visio Professional 2003 behave like magnets, snapping together when you bring two connector ends close together. Connections are maintained even when shapes are moved, and lines reroute intelligently.

Communicate and collaborate more effectively

Visio Professional 2003 enhances the work you do by helping you communicate and collaborate flexibly with team members and other project stakeholders.

Share and review diagrams

The Shared Workspace functionality in Visio Professional 2003 promotes collaboration through Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services sites, so you can readily publish diagrams to your team site. Team members can open Visio Professional 2003 diagrams directly from the Shared Workspace and review them using new annotation tools that make each reviewer’s contributions identifiable to others.

Export data to generate reports

Use Visio Professional 2003 to export the information contained in diagrams to reports in Microsoft® Office Excel 2003, XML, and HTML formats.

Save diagrams as Web pages

With Visio Professional 2003 you can save your diagrams as Web pages complete with navigation controls, a custom property viewer, reports, choice of image format, and style sheet options.

Print to large format printers

Set custom page sizes to accommodate your specific needs, including large printouts for reference purpose.

For complete system requirements, please visit

This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Microsoft® Office, Microsoft® Visio® Professional 2003, Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

0603 Part No.xxx-xxxxx