Mac users aren’t at all shy about making their requests for applications known:
How about Visio for Mac?
Oct 24, 2011 There are several solutions to this problem: other complex diagramming and vector graphics applications mentioned above, operate on crossplatform app, use online converters or use visio viewers, like this one. Thus there are 4 solutions to open Visio on Mac, each with benefits and drawback, so it's up to you to chose optimal. Dec 20, 2019 An Internet Explorer window opens and loads Visio Viewer, which then loads and renders the drawing in the browser window. On the Internet Explorer File menu, click Open. In the Open dialog box, select a Visio drawing (.vsd.vss.vst.vdx.vsx, or.vtx extension).
When will IE return to Mac?
Will we ever see a Microsoft Project for Mac?
Where can I get Access for Mac?
When will (insert name of hot new game here) be available for Mac?
Most of these requests are for well-known Microsoft applications on Windows, and Mac users want them. Let me address a few of these in some detail.
Microsoft Visio
It’s unwise to say “never” with regard to future development efforts by a company as large as Microsoft, so I will predict this about Visio for Mac: it’s very, very unlikely to ever happen.
Open Microsoft Visio On Mac Free
I, and many others, believe the development costs to produce a Mac Visio that would faithfully render any existing Visio drawing (and have almost all the functionality of Visio for Windows) would never be recouped by Microsoft.
For any Mac software company, a software product that brought in $50 million per year would be viewed as a fantastic success. But in the rarified world of the Microsoft Office team, such a product would be considered a dismal failure.
For any Mac software company, a software product that brought in $50 million per year would be viewed as a fantastic success. But in the rarified world of the Microsoft Office team, such a product would be considered a dismal failure.
Microsoft Access
Exactly the same as Visio: very, very unlikely to ever happen, and for exactly the same reason.
Internet Explorer
Never going to happen.
There was a version of IE for Mac about 15 years ago. Microsoft ceased development of IE for Mac in July 2003. Given that there is no new development for IE for Windows (because of the release of Microsoft Edge in 2015), there is no chance at all for a future release of IE for Mac.
Any Hot New Game by Microsoft
Never going to happen.
The graphics foundations on Mac and Windows diverge sufficiently that porting any hot new Windows game over to the Mac is a major undertaking. It would be unlikely to recoup development costs, for the same reasons as the Office applications. You can read more details about DirectX and OpenGL.
What’s a Mac User to Do?
There are a couple of options for a Mac user:
- Use a viewer application. In some cases, a viewer application that faithfully renders a document that you could not otherwise open will suffice. In the case of Visio, Microsoft has released a Visio Viewer for iOS, as shown in Figure 1.
- Use a competing application. Search for “Visio for Mac” on Google, and many of the results will be for third-party applications for Mac that open Visio drawings and provide much of the same functionality.
- Run the real Windows application on your Mac. If you need the real Visio with all its functionality, then use Parallels Desktop® for Mac to run Windows 10 on your Mac and purchase Visio from Microsoft. You lose no functionality or visual fidelity, since you are running the real Visio in the environment it expects: Windows 10.
(Already own Visio? No problem. Just use the Migration feature in Parallels Desktop to move everything on your PC—including Visio—into a virtual machine on your Mac.)
Figure 2 shows Visio running on my MacBook Pro®.
Figure 2_Visio 2016 running in Windows10 on a Mac with Parallels Desktop
Figures 3 and 4 show Access, and Figure 5 shows IE—all running on my MacBook Pro.
Figure 3_Access 2016 in Windows 10 running on a Mac with Parallels Desktop
Microsoft Visio Download
Figure 4_Access 2016 in Windows 10 running on a Mac with Parallels Desktop
Figure 5_IE in Windows10 running on a Mac with Parallels Desktop
While you may not be able to get the Mac applications you desire, you can get the Windows versions and run them right alongside your Mac applications.
As the product manager for Parallels Desktop, you might consider my opinions to be a bit biased. (They aren’t, but you might think that.) So, here is a quote from a Network World review (emphasis mine):
“I’ve been a Mac user for many years, and like with most Mac users, there are occasions when I have core business apps that require me to run Internet Explorer for a browser, or run Visual Studio for app development work, or even run Microsoft Project and Visio that just aren’t available on a Mac. And while Apple provides BootCamp where I can switch between booting from a Mac to booting as a Windows system, that means I have to constantly reboot my system to switch between operating platforms. So I’ve been a happy user of Parallels for years where I can run Windows and Mac applications side by side at the same time.” –Rand Morimoto, Network World
Try Parallels Desktop for free for 14 days!
Open Visio® Drawings on macOS
Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later
Microsoft Visio® Viewer allows to:
- Navigate multipage documents
- Switch documents layers
- Processes EMF / WMF metafiles
- Processes OLE-objects
- Skip hidden objects
- View objects outside page boundaries
- View gradient-filled objects
- View original dimension units
- …And many more!
Preview formatted elements
Visio for Mac processes original objects’ fills, lines and text the same way as they are displayed by MS Visio®. All the line arrows and tabulated texts will be also displayed the way they are in Visio®. Text subscript and superscript are processed as well as dimension and state objects.
Multiplatform
The combination of VSD Viewer for Mac and VSD Viewer for iOS is recommended for distributed teams collaborating in a multiplatform environment, in order to support the extensive communication capabilities.
Explore drawings structure
VSD and VSDX Viewer has a stunning set of features that improves basic viewing function. Firstly, it enables layers switching even hidden ones, viewer displays only that layers you choose from the drawings menubar. In the menubar it is also possible to navigate all the document’s pages.
More options
Convert your files to PDF for further annotation, printing and sharing, switch on metafiles transparency and extended drawing area if you operate with specific document requiring such features.
Processing Shape Data
Shape data is a special array to safe hidden objects’ properties, such arrays are widely used in many various types of professional drawings. Simply enable “Shape Data Displaying” mode and objects that have those properties will be displayed. Activated objects with shape data (as many at a time as needed) will be shown on PDF-converted and printed documents.
VSD file Viewer for Mac
View Visio® Flowcharts on Mac OS X
Additional Information
- Application Category – Business
- Operating System – OS X 10.9 or later
- Processor Requirements – 64-bit processor
- Performance Language – English
- File Size – 3.5 MB
- Price – USD14.99
Consider VSDX Annotator App to preview, annotate and convert Visio® drawings on Mac
Viduificaler
Have been using this tool for quite some time now. It always has worked reliably and allowed me to quickly view the Visio® diagrams my colleagues are producing.
Ctyrider
Most Visio® viewers and diagramming apps on Mac are complete junk, but this one is a winner. Correctly renders even the most complex Visio® documents and export to PDF.
Tom M.
I have this app on all of my Apple devices. Can’t live without it. I also have received great support when a diagram fails to display.