So, we can now all talk about Microsoft Office 2013, and, in particular, Visio 2013! Read about it at http://visio.microsoft.com/en-us/Preview/visio-benefits.aspx and find resources at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161226 . As a Visio MVP, I am delighted to see some of the exciting new capabilities. Of course, there are some tremendous visual enahancements, but the really big thing for me is the adoption of the Metro file format.
The Metro file format is the zipped-up, multi-part xml format used by Word, Excel and PowerPoint for several years already, but Visio missed out on this in the 2010 version, probably because so much effort was required to implement the FluentUI (Ribbon).
It may seem a small change, especially since Visio already had an XML format, but this new file format opens up so much more possibilities! One immediate benefit is the tighter integration with SharePoint … no more need to save into Visio Web Drawing format! Other benefits include Duplicate Page, Change Shape and Co-authoring … All of these must have been much easier to implement with the new Metro format. I’ll be blogging more about Visio 2013 in the future, but now I need to go explore …