PNG2VSS: BATCH IMAGE CONVERTER FOR MICROSOFT VISIO

1. Description PNG2VSS is the simple tool for automatic images conversion to Microsoft Visio stencils. It can convert images of the following types: Raster images (png, bmp, dib, gif, jpg, jpeg, jpe, jfif, tif, tiff); Vector images and metafiles (emf, wmf, emz, wmz, svg, svgz, eps); Visio drawings (vsd, vst, vdx, vtx, vsdx); CAD drawings (dwg, dxf); Adobe Photoshop files (psd); Adobe Illustrator files (ai); PostScript files (ps, eps).

Support for some formats may depend on the version of MS Visio installed on your computer. The converter can: Add connection points to shapes; Create transparent backgrounds for raster images; Create grayscale images; Crop raster images; Resize images without degradation of original quality of images; Add custom properties to shapes and fill them in with default values; Save and load sets of custom properties to/from file; Add prompts to shapes; Create 1-dimensional shapes; Add metadata to stencils; Save conversion settings; Vectorize raster images; Process images automatically with command line options.

The utility is very easy to use. 2. Requirements Microsoft Windows XP, Vista or 7; Microsoft Visio 2003 or higher; Microsoft NET Framework 4.0.

3. How to start 3.1. Installation

Unzip archive file to any directory on your choice; Double click on Png2Vss.exe file; Setup parameters and add files to be converted.

Application is portable, you can copy or move it to any other folder.

3.2. How to Start

Click on Add Files to choose files you want to be converted; Click on Edit to open files with default editor; Click on Paste from clipboard to paste a file or screenshot from clipboard; Click on Clear to clear the list of files to be converted; Click on Set Output File to choose existing stencil file or create new one; Check off Open Stencil to view result in MS Visio; Check off Update Stencil to add shapes to the existing stencil, if file does not exist this option has no effect. Note that existing shapes will stay completely untouched, new ones will be added to the stencil (use with care); Check off Close When Done to close the program after conversion.

3.3. Setting Shape Parameters In fact you can start conversion right at this moment using default settings, but there are also other parameters which can be changed, switch to Shapes page:

Check off Create Connection Points if you want to make connection points at sides of every shape and at the center; Check off Create 1-Dimensional Shapes if you want that shapes will have line-like behavior; Check off Transparent Background if you want to remove background from images. Top-left point of image will be used to detect transparent color. Play with Tolerance setting to achieve best results. Some images may have alpha channel, but still do not have transparent background use Enforce keying option for these images. Note that this option will work only with raster images having no alpha channel (built-in transparency); Check off Crop Images if you want to remove free space around images. Note that this option will work only with raster images; Check off Grayscale Images if you want to create grayscale images. Note that this option will work only with raster images; Check off Resize Images and set width & height of every shape if you want that all the shape will have the same size. Check off Keep Aspect Ratio to save aspect of original images when resizing; Check off Scale images to scale images and set factor; Check off Lock Aspect Ratio to prevent the shape from being distorted once it is dropped on a page; Check off Flatten Visio Drawings all the Visio drawings will be first converted to flat vector graphics, this option will create shapes with resizable texts and lines; Check off Disable theming to disallow shape theming; Check off Vectorize to create vector images from raster ones. Change maximum colors (up to 255). Works good only for simple images, not photos.

Fill in Prompt, its an optional text that will be displayed next to icons or just stay it empty:

3.4. Setting Shape Data Every shape may have a set of data (custom properties) which will be added automatically during conversion:

You can save or load sets from XML files (click on Load or Save). Next time the utility starts it will open last saved file. Its recommended to save changes every time you finish using the utility do not to lose changes you made. Click Clear to remove all the properties. You also can set default values for every custom property. 3.5. Setting common stencil parameters Every shape and stencil has some metadata which can be filled in in advance:

Its highly recommended to set some of them (e.g. Copyright may be set only once, if you fill it in here end users wont be allowed to change it). 3.6. Advanced parameters For conversion AI, PS and EPS files its necessary to install Inkscape first. PS and EPS files also require Ghostscript installed. Vectorization feature requires Potrace package. To download installation packages click on links on Advanced tab page. 3.7. Processing When you finish with settings you can start conversion process, just click on Start Processing. In case of any problem during conversion youll see error message with explanation of problem. Typical reasons are: Broken image file; Unsupported format of source file; File has read-only attribute; Incorrect custom property or its default value; Some unknown reason.

3.8. Command line options For fully automatic conversion you can use the following command line options: /F <directory> - load all the files from directory that match extension mask; /O <output file> - save results to output file;

/S start conversion immediately (the utility will reuse last settings). Adding simple script to Windows Scheduler will allow you to process images without manual intervention at desired time. 4. Information 4.1. Help Press F1 to read this manual. 4.2. Links Click on Copyright link to send an e-mail to me or click on My blog to visit my blog. Please check it regularly for updates. My sites: Blog: http://dmitryivanov.net LinkedIn: http://ru.linkedin.com/in/dmitryivanov SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/Dmitry_Ivanov 4.3. Credits Visio Guys forum where this program was first time published: http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=713.0 SimplePsd library by Igor Tolmachev: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/10885/Reading-Adobe-Photoshop-images 5. Licensing 5.1. License PNG2VSS is a freeware software application. You are allowed to use and share this software for free. 5.2. No Warranties. The software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. The software is provided with all faults and the entire risk as to satisfactory quality, performance, accuracy and effort is with you. 5.3. Limitation of Liability

This software is provided "as-is" without any express or implied warranties. In no event shall the author be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software. THANK YOU FOR USING PNG2VSS