Wondershare EdrawMax vs. Microsoft Visio

As part of the suite of tools from Wondershare, EdrawMax provides a large set of tools found in more expensive proprietary tools, integration with Mind Mapping which is a core workstream for my style, The usability of the interface, and options to utilize templated from other toolsets, import-export to other tool types. The tool is a good cost to function ratio.

If I wanted to produce best-in-class deliverables, particularly for an external-facing document where presentation quality matters, I would use Visio. For an organization that wants to standardize and ensure consistent deliverables across teams, I consider Visio a strong option. However, if I need a quick illustration of a process flow or architecture, I would use another tool to avoid spending more time than necessary.

Incentivized

• Flow charting
• Depict a complex process so its easily understood
• Its structure and organization are very similar to how mainstream apps work.
• Its huge and expandable feature set blows away all other apps
• I want the right tools because my time is precious. This is the right choice by far.

• Visio comes with icons that can help differentiate processes within a map. These can be used to be a legend and helps create a visually appealing flow.
• Visio is user-friendly and allows the user to easily navigate through the different creative options that can be used.
• Because this is a Microsoft product, Visio works well with other Microsoft products for easy translation.

Incentivized

• While saving the output as an image, it may be easy to export to word format files as vector.
• Due to my profession, power electronics can be a library richness.

• For me personally I cannot highlight anything specific that has any bearing on how I use the product. Everything is very straightforward and clearly signposted including template desgins and categories. The layout is easy to navigate and as it's part of the MS Office ecosystem means there is less to learn as I'm used to a lot of the cross product functionality.

Incentivized

We use Microsoft Visio to keep our diagrams updated and to that end we will need the subscription to keep using the software. Otherwise we will be left with PDF versions of the diagrams.

Incentivized

It is super easy to use because it works like the mainstream apps. Almost everything's familiar and easy to access

You need to really understand what you are trying to communicate and deliver with this software package. It allows you to get as simple or as complex (depending on your intended audience) and with the capability of integrating with other Microsoft products like Word, you can deliver a very polished document on a project that would very easily address all aspects from beginning to end.

Incentivized

Needed to contact the support team as I had lost license details. Their response was fast, professional and what's more, very helpful. All the needed data was sent to me and I was able to reinstall Wondershare EdrawMax again.

Overall, I feel that Microsoft's support is weak. They are now such a behemoth that their model of putting documentation online for their users to sift through is totally outgrown. Given the amount of money you pay for these licenses, Microsoft should provide easy one-on-one support for their products via email or chat. The idea of paying their rates for support incidents is ridiculous. If you have an enormous amount of time on your hands, use their support websites and you will eventually find a solution most of the time.

Incentivized

Too many apps to list. 50 years of computing as a C-level exec. I am not a specialist at this. I am a generalist. Having an app that makes a generalist look like a specialist is really a cool. I can't image what a true specialist/graphic artist/engineer/designer could do. My, oh my.

SmartDraw was a program that I used at a prior company before we migrated to Visio. It was not nearly as intuitive to use, and even though it is advertised to be able to offer easy import and export to Visio, when I would export it to a Visio file format and share it with a colleauge, they would always tell me that something would look off with the diagram I sent them. We eventually migrated to Visio at my prior company and thankfully my current company used Visio from day 1.

Incentivized

• Intellectual leverage
• Develops a large-scale trust (good graphics is always appreciated even if its complex to read)
• Impactful visualization (hard to enumerate)

• It has allowed us to speed up the creation of flowcharts and organizational charts significantly.
• Microsoft Visio has enabled us to be more effective with our customers by using diagrams to describe our businesses.
• It allows us to organize work with our students more easily.