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Important    We no longer recommend using Visio Services and the Visio Web Access Web Part on SharePoint Online. From now on, use Visio for the web to display Visio diagrams and create Visio mashup solutions on the web. For more information, see Visio Services in SharePoint Online roadmap. In SharePoint Server, these features will continue to be supported in accordance with the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy.

When you save a diagram to SharePoint as a Web drawing, you are using Visio Services to make the diagram available for people to view in a browser. Web drawings can have hyperlinks, multiple pages, and other features like a standard Visio drawing, including the ability to connect to external data sources.

Saving a diagram as a Web drawing is different from saving it as a Visio drawing in a SharePoint document library, even though both methods use SharePoint. Visio drawings require Visio to be installed, and they open in Visio. A Web drawing can be viewed directly in the browser, without using Visio. The ability to view Web drawings is supported by Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

Prerequisites for publishing Web drawings

  • Microsoft Visio 2010 Professional or Premium

  • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 with Visio Services enabled (your server administrator must enable and configure Visio Services)

Publish a diagram as a Web drawing

  1. Click the File tab.

  2. Click Save & Send.

  3. Click Save to SharePoint.

  4. Under My SharePoint Locations, select the site where you want to publish the diagram.

    1. If the site is not listed, you can select Browse for a location to browse to or type the location where you want to publish the diagram after you click Save As. If you type the location, use the format http(s)://host/path for the path.

  5. Under File Types, select Web Drawing (*.vdw).

  6. Click the Save As button.

    1. The Save As dialog box opens and presents some additional options.

  7. Select the check box Automatically view files in browser if you want to open the diagram for review immediately after you click Save. This option is available only if you are saving as a Web drawing (.vdw file).

  8. Click the Options button to open the Publish Settings dialog and configure which pages and data sources to publish. Publishing pages or data sources makes them viewable in the browser. The selected items will be published, and the items that are not selected will be hidden or disconnected.

    1. If you clear a check box, the associated item is not viewable in the browser but is still part of the diagram when the diagram is opened in Visio. If you do not want a page to be visible in Visio, delete it from the document before you save it to SharePoint.

  9. Make sure the Save as type option is set to Web Drawing (*.vdw), and click Save.

Elements that are not rendered as expected in Web drawings

Most standard elements of Visio diagrams appear as expected when published as Web drawings. However, some elements might not be rendered as expected, including the following:

  • Custom line patterns

  • Custom fill patterns

  • Custom end shapes

  • Custom end shape sizes

  • Custom end caps

  • Custom shadow styles and patterns

  • Ink

  • Markup

Data-connected diagrams

If you create a diagram that has connections to external data sources, the connections are maintained in the Web diagram except for some special cases.

Supported data sources

The following data sources are supported:

  • Excel workbooks hosted on the SharePoint site

  • SQL Server tables and views (SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, 2010)

  • SharePoint lists

  • Recent OLEDB/ODBC drivers

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access data source connections are not maintained when a diagram is published as a Web diagram.

Microsoft Excel

Excel workbooks are supported as data sources, but you must put the workbook on the SharePoint site that is hosting the Web diagram.

PivotDiagrams and Timeline diagrams

You can publish PivotDiagrams or Timeline diagrams as Web drawings, but they are disconnected from the data sources and so cannot be refreshed.

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