Visio For Mac – 10 Best Alternatives of 2020 For Pros
Microsoft Visio for Mac has never been released so we’ve taken an expert look at the best alternatives to Visio on a Mac.
If you’re an IT professional, technician, software developer, engineer, business analyst or project manager, the lack of Visio on Mac doesn’t mean you can’t still easily present complex information in visual form.
We found that SmartDraw is the best alternative to Visio for Mac and the only tool that can EXPORT accurately to the latest Visio VSDX format.
This is essential if you want to edit Visio files on your Mac and exchange Visio files with Windows users.
All of the tools reviewed here however make it easy to draw diagrams on your Mac and import MS Visio files.
That means there’s no need to say goodbye to your precious Visio diagrams and stencils when drawing complex flowcharts and diagrams such as process flows, work flows and charts.
Even better, all the tools featured here are certainly easier to use than MS Visio and in almost every case, much better value than Visio Professional which currently costs a hefty $530.
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How We Ranked These Visio Alternatives
Here’s what we looked for in choosing which was the best equivalent to Visio for Mac.
- Price: We only chose diagramming tools that offer excellent value for money with free trials or plans to start out with
- Reviews: We selected tools that are widely acclaimed by other users and professionals for diagramming
- Visio Imports: We gave preference to software that allow you to import Visio files in VDX and VSDX format
- Visio Export: We gave added preference to software that can also export to the Visio VSDX format
- Templates: We ranked those apps higher that have a wide choice of templates for a range of diagramming needs
- Sharing: We valued those programs that make it easy to share diagrams via link or export to Microsoft Office, Google Apps etc.
- Integrations: We valued those apps that allow you to integrate with third party software such as MS Office, Jira, Confluence, Trello etc.
With this in mind, here then are the best Visio alternatives for Mac users in order of ranking.
1. SmartDraw
SmartDraw is easily the most powerful yet easy to use alternative to Microsoft Visio for Mac.
The best thing about SmartDraw is that it does everything that Visio can but makes it far simpler and faster.
Not only that, but it’s much better value for money than MS Visio.
SmartDraw has been on the market since 1994 and is used by around half of Fortune 500 companies and more than 250,000 enterprises worldwide, many of them in Mac only environments.
One of the major reasons for this is that SmartDraw has been designed specifically to rival Visio (rather than just an all-purpose diagram tool like many others) and this is clear in the little touches that make it stand-out from the crowd.
For example, it’s the only alternative to Visio on Mac that can both import AND export to the latest Visio VSDX format.
Often when importing Visio files into any third party program, there’s a lot of formatting issues but SmartDraw can import Visio files accurately and with ease.
The same goes for Visio stencils.
If you have hundreds of Visio stencils that you don’t want to say goodbye to, you can just import VSD and VSDX Visio stencils into SmartDraw and keep using them.
The interface of SmartDraw will feel familiar to anyone that’s ever used Visio but its far more user-friendly than MS Visio with a slick design that looks great on macOS.
SmartDraw also blows Visio out of the water for templates and objects.
There are more than 4,500 diagram templates in SmartDraw compared to little more than 100 in Visio.
If you want to share diagrams, you can easily can export files to Microsoft Office For Mac, PDF, SVG or PNG format or share via file sharing apps such as Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive for Business.
Overall, SmartDraw is an amazing professional alternative to Visio on Mac.
It produces results as good as Visio but with considerably less effort and time.
For a more detailed look, you can check out our in-depth SmartDraw review.
You can also see how SmartDraw vs Visio compare side-by-side below.
Price: $5.95 per month for teams of 5+ / $9.95 per month individuals / Enterprise plans on request
Free Visio ® Viewer for macOS
View Visio ® files on Mac
VSD Viewer is a free-to-try MS Visio ® Viewer for macOS.
The application allows to preview .VSD, .VDX, .VSDX file formats of Visio ® drawings on your Mac.
Download the viewer to get started.
Show hidden layers
Visio ® Viewer Options and Capabilities
Visio ® Reader provides a rich set of viewer options for opening, complex rendering and exact displaying Visio ® drawings on macOS.
Show hidden layers to preview all needed details.
Enable Shape Data to show user-defined data of objects.
Drawings with even themes are displayed exactly like in Visio ® .
Preview drawings with custom page sizes & backgrounds pages.
Object’s dimensions for drawings are displayed in original units.
Text with frames, tabulations and tables are supported.
Preview drawings & stencils of VSD, VSDX, VDX, VSDM, VDW, VSSX, VSSM, VSX, VSS file formats.
Visio files with metafile images (EMF and WMF) and even embedded OLE-objects.
Operate Visio ® Drawings on Mac
Preview Visio ® drawings with a full content and all details, including Hidden Layers, Shape Data and Hyperlinks.
Show Hidden Layers
Switch layers visibility of Visio ® files. Choose which parts and shapes of the complete drawing you want to view and concentrate on specific databases. You can show or hide layers simply by tapping one button. The objects, that belong to disabled layers will be excluded when you print or convert Visio ® files to PDF.
View Object’s Shape Data
Shape data contains important information about each drawing’s object. With VSD Viewer you can view Shape Data, which is extremely useful when you need to determine trends across all your process steps. With just one click you can enable Shape Data and make checking Visio ® diagrams and charts more meaningful.
Preview Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks in Visio ® are often helpful, when you need to link Visio ® objects to a specific web page with a related information or to another Visio ® page. With VSD Viewer you can view and follow hyperlinks, created in MS Visio ® . Just click the hyperlink and your browser will open a new window and display the destination Web site.
Share Visio ® Flowcharts
Preview and convert Visio ® file to PDF for sharing with a team.
Create PDF documents with actual Layers, Shape Data and Hyperlinks displayed.
Convert Visio ® file to PDF and send via email
Save Visio ® files to Adobe PDF file format just in one click. Decide if Shape Data and Hyperlinks or which Layers you want to show and get your PDF file in seconds. Make it easy to work on Visio ® drawings with your team members, colleagues or customers by sharing the file in a more common extension and in a smaller file size via email. With VSD Viewer an online file converter is no more needed.
Print MS Visio ® drawings on a Mac
VSD Viewer lets you print your Visio ® diagrams, flowcharts, mind maps and other drawings with a single button. You can print the file either with all layers or with a specific layers data, either with Shape Data and Hyperlinks or without them, either all pages of multi-page documents or a singular page.
Basic features
• Open any MS Visio ® 2000 – 2013 drawing of VDX/VSDX file formats
• Scroll, zoom and navigate documents
• Navigate multipage documents
• Preview documents with backgrounds
• View objects with formatted texts
• View drawings with themes
• View text frames and tab stops
• View documents with hidden objects
• View objects outside page boundaries
Advanced features
• Preview drawings with layers
• Show hidden layers
• View documents with embedded OLE-objects
• View documents with embedded metafiles – EMF and WMF
• Print and Save to PDF your drawings
• Preview objects’ Shape Data
• Enable Shape Data mode to preview assigned data
• View original dimension units
The application is optimized for macOS Mojave
Additional Information
- ☑ Application Category – Business
- ☑ Operating System – OS X 10.9 or later
- ☑ Processor Requirements – 64-bit processor
- ☑ Performance Language – English
- ☑ File Size – 3.5 MB
- ☑ Price – 14.99 USD
Consider VSDX Annotator App to preview, annotate and convert Visio ® drawings on Mac