In my post yesterday I showed how to publish Visio files as html image maps. That was one of the alternatives. Today I’ll present how to use SVG to achieve the same goal: publish Visio diagrams in SharePoint without having the Enterprise license. There are some alternatives:

1. Show Visio diagrams as pdf files on SharePoint Pages
2. Embed Visio diagrams as html image maps - Read more in my previous blog post
3. Embed Visio diagrams as svg pictures - This blog post.
4. Link to Visio files that are opened using Visio Web Viewer in a new browser tab.

SVG

SVG stands for scalable vector graphic, it is a xml-based format for defining images. It is supported in all modern browsers. Because SVG can be part of a page markup, it can be easily embedded into SharePoint.

I got a question from a customer: We have our processes defined in Visio, we don’t have SharePoint Enterprise CALs to use the Visio webpart. We have links in process maps. What can we do? Well there are three five ways to solve this business need:

1. Find money for SharePoint Enterprise - Very expensive
2. Show Visio diagrams as pdf files on SharePoint Pages - Expensive.
3. Embed Visio diagrams as html image maps - Least expensive
4. Embed Visio diagrams as svg pictures - Separate blog post.
5. Link to Visio files that are opened using Visio Web Viewer in a new browser tab.

If the business needs other features available only in Enterprise, just use the solution 1. Stop reading. If you are looking for alternatives, then consider pdf and image maps. I have seen projects where pdf files were embedded in the SharePoint Pages. It required a pdf plugin in IE, a lot of time to make it look the same in different browsers and the scroll and fixed size was still there. It was expensive because of the development and configuration time. In this blog post, I want to show the alternative number 3: embedding Visio diagrams as html image maps. This is only a Proof-of-concept so far.