Custom Symbols

Essential Diagram ships with a Symbol Designer Utility, which facilitates the creation of custom symbols. These symbols can be organised in various categories, for their ease of use. Futher, symbols can also be imported in the form of Microsoft Visio stencil files (*.vss files), which can be converted into Essential Diagram symbol palettes. These symbol palettes can also be edited and customized as per user needs.

Custom symbols can be created and added to Symbol palettes, which can be saved and loaded whenever needed. These symbols can be categorized and saved in individual symbol palettes. Symbols can be dragged from the palette and dropped on the canvas.

Symbol palettes are saved in files with a default extension of .edp (Essential Diagram Palette).

Using Essential Diagram's Symbol Designer Utility, users can create custom symbols, draw shapes, create groups, set styles, add ports and labels.

Futher, these custom symbols can be loaded in symbol palettes, to create diagrams. The Symbol palette files are saved using the Symbol Designer Utility, which allows the creation of new symbols and palettes at ease.

Visio stencil import is a very powerful feature that lets you take advantage of the vast selection of shapes that ship with Visio , which are also commercially available. The Visio shapes imported from the stencil files adhere to all aspects of diagram node behavior, and can be used in the same manner as regular diagram symbols.

Further, Visio symbols are fully supported by the Essential Diagram styles and property inheritance model and document serialization.