Visio (ViS) is a program that allows businesses or organizations to produce numerous types of block diagrams for two basic purposes: 1) the diagrams illustrate given organization and operations information simply for one's clear comprehension; 2) the diagrams allow automatic tracking of various organizational interrelationships, schedules, and outputs.

The ViS software requires the following PC characteristics: Win95/WinNT4, 486/66 CPU, 16M RAM, and 15M-90M hard-drive storage (my installation was 46.1M). Installation from a CD was trouble free and straightforward.

Among the diagrams that can be produced are: Dynamic-Process Flow Charts and Business Plans, Project Management Reports and Schedules, Marketing Strategy Plans and Corporate Presentations, Design Sales and Financial Reports, Product Specifications Office Layout Diagrams, and Directional Maps. These diagrams are composed from a catalog of graphical forms and tools. Thus, there are all sorts of basic shapes (stars, heptagons, crosses, etc.) that can be shaped, positioned, squeezed, rotated, etc. Additionally, there are many other specifically designed shapes to work with; these are related to charting, form designs, marketing, office-layouts, organization charts, project-timelines, audit-diagrams, data-flow diagrams, flowcharts, etc. Text requirements are supplied from a wealth of the standard text techniques used in word-processing.

As outputs, these diagrammatic pictorials can be formatted as the some of the most colorful, striking, graphic designs and, thereby, serve to effectively illustrate, enhance, and expedite the functioning of an organization.

The opening window of ViS contains a simple set of nine Explorer-type folders, related to the job at hand: Block Diagram, Business Diagram, Data Base, Flow Chart, Maps, Network Diagram, Visio Extras, Blank Drawing. The CD contains sample outputs as initial guides for each of these categories. On opening a category, a five-tier set of graphic and text composition tools appears along the top of the display, and a set of category-related forms appears on the left side of the display. The remainder of the display (three quarters) serves as a desktop workspace to lay out the particular project. Forms are simply dragged onto the workspace, then sized, positioned, rotated, annotated, colored, connected, related, and modified in practically any way one chooses for creating an effective and useful composite. Changing cursor arrows facilitate operations.

I was easily able to produce some room layouts, block diagrams, and flow charts. The Directional-Map segment of ViS was fun to try for producing a simple local map. Using the program's Freeform tool and a Pen/Tablet input device (which I didn't), one could trace any map into computerize and then be able to personally annotate, emphasize, transmit, and do all the other good things to the result, which one can do with a PC.

ViS comes with an excellent user manual and is a pleasure to use.