OmniGraffle Pro 7.26 — macOS

OmniGraffle Pro 7.26 now requires macOS 14 or newer and improves compatibility with macOS Golden Gate 27. For the people who already know the basics, here are the tools that make the Pro edition worth having.

Import and export Visio documents

You can bring in Microsoft Visio VSD and VDX files, plus VSS stencils and VST templates. On the way out, export as VDX. That keeps the workflow alive when the rest of the office is on Windows.

Shared layers and artboards

Shared layers let you place a logo, header, or background once and have it appear on every canvas. Artboards keep multiple diagrams in one document, which helps when you’re iterating on a flow or comparing layouts side by side.

Convert text to shapes and share keyboard sets

Select a text block, convert it to editable paths — useful for custom typography in diagrams. You can also export and import keyboard shortcut sets, so your team can work with the same key bindings without reconfiguring each machine.

Adds a fourth artboard for cloud services

Tuesday morning, I open a project for a network topology diagram. The document already has three artboards: one for the office LAN, one for the remote site, and a third for the cloud services. I add a fourth artboard for a new branch office. The sidebar shows all four canvases at once, and I can drag them to reorder. I drop a shared layer called "Title Block" onto each canvas — the project name and date update automatically because I used a text field that reads from the document properties.

I start placing shapes from the stencil library. For the branch office, I need a router, a switch, a firewall, and a few workstations. The inspector panel lets me adjust line weights and fill colors without digging into menus. I add a table to group the workstations: three columns for device name, IP address, and MAC address. Rows and columns come and go with a click, and the table resizes itself as I add entries.

When the diagram is done, I convert the text labels for the router into editable shapes so the font renders correctly on a colleague's machine that doesn't have the same typeface. Then I export the whole artboard as a PDF. The shared layers stay intact, and the output looks clean.

Opens Visio VSD files directly and re-lays out boxes

OmniGraffle Pro sits between a vector drawing tool and a dedicated wireframe app. It imports Visio files directly, so when someone sends a VSD from a Windows machine, I can open it, re-lay out the boxes, and send back a VDX. That saves the back-and-forth of recreating diagrams.

It also exports layers to Photoshop, which is handy if a designer needs to drop a diagram into a mockup. On the macOS side, the app uses the standard macOS file chooser and supports drag-and-drop from Finder. You can drag an image file onto an artboard, and it becomes part of the diagram. The shared keyboard shortcut sets sync across machines if you store the config file in a shared folder — no extra software needed.

For Xcode projects, OmniGraffle Pro can automatically generate diagrams from the code structure. That's a niche feature, but when you inherit a project with a dozen classes, it saves the time of mapping out relationships by hand.

Lacks Visio imports that OmniGraffle Pro handles

There are a few diagramming tools for macOS, and they each have their own angle.

draw.io (diagrams.net) runs in a browser or as a desktop app. It's free and works well for simple flowcharts. But it doesn't handle Visio imports natively, and it lacks artboards and shared layers. For multi-canvas projects, OmniGraffle Pro is more direct.

Lucidchart is a web-based service with real-time collaboration. It has a clean interface and plenty of templates. But it requires an internet connection, and the file format is proprietary. OmniGraffle Pro keeps everything local and opens Visio files without conversion steps.

Microsoft Visio for Mac doesn't exist. There's a web version, but it's not the same as a native macOS app. OmniGraffle Pro is built for the Mac from the ground up, with keyboard shortcuts and window management that feel natural on the platform.

Opens a contractor's Visio VSD for a new floor plan

Mark runs a three-person IT group for a mid-sized law firm. He needs to document the network for a new floor plan after a lease renewal. His boss sends a Visio VSD file from the building's facilities contractor. Mark opens it in OmniGraffle Pro, adds an artboard for the server room, and uses shared layers to put the firm's logo on every page. He converts the text labels to shapes so the PDFs look the same on the managing partner's iPad. The whole job — import, re-layout, export — takes under an hour. No one on his team has Visio installed. For professionals needing precise diagrams, OmniGraffle Pro offers a powerful alternative to an "omnigraffle torrent".

• Improves compatibility with macOS Golden Gate 27.
• Requires macOS 14 or newer.

• macOS 14 or newer
• Apple Silicon or Intel Mac