August 10, 2016 at 10:06 am
I want to export a diagram preferably to Visio but I do not currently have it installed.
Before I get a license I was wondering if that is the best option?
Does the export require manipulation to clean up the format after the export?
I tried printing to a pdf from SQL Server and ER/Studio but the format was a mess.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.
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August 11, 2016 at 11:36 am
Short answer - You can't. Microsoft removed this from Visio 2013.
Longer answer - If you can get a license for Visio 2010 Professional you can still do database diagramming.
Here's a link with the same info and how the functionality was moved to Visual Studio. I have not tried to do a database diagram this way yet so no guarantees.
August 11, 2016 at 11:48 am
Welsh Corgi (8/10/2016)
I want to export a diagram preferably to Visio but I do not currently have it installed.
What do you mean by this? Did you create a diagram in SSMS, and want to export it to Visio? If so, that can't really be done.
Does the export require manipulation to clean up the format after the export?
If you want a well laid out ER diagram so you can hang it on a wall, you are going to have to do some work. Visio is not going to do anything different than ER/Studio.
I tried printing to a pdf from SQL Server and ER/Studio but the format was a mess.
You already own ER/Studio. That will do everything, and far more, than Visio in regards to creating an ER Diagram.
You will still need to do significant amount of formatting so that things fit on a page properly, and so forth. Obviously, if you have a large number of entities, then it will take more work.
Michael L John
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August 11, 2016 at 11:57 am
I wish that Microsoft would invest some in upgrading the SSMS database diagramming tool. Deprecating the functionality from recent versions of Visio was also an odd move, since ERD diagramming is probably the 2nd most popular use of the product other than business process flowcharting.
Here is a thread in stachexchange where someone investigated several different options and eventually settled on Visio 2013 but leveraged a system meta-data query to populate table objects in more of a manual way rather than relying on the missing reverse engineering option.
There is also an open source Visio alternative that seems to provide a more robust database diagramming feature.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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