One of the best third party add-ons to Visio therefore, is the Orthogonal Toolbox, a XML-based export utility that, with the right XSLT file, can be used to forward engineer your Visio database diagram.
It isn't perfect, but here's how:
- Close Visio, download and install the Orthogonal Toolbox: http://www.orthogonalsoftware.com/toolboxaddons.html
- Download this guy's XSLT file: http://www.dougboude.com/blog/1/2008/11/SQL-Forward-Engineering-with-Visio-2003-Professional.cfm
- Open your visio diagram, click on the new toolbox button.
- Select the XSLT file in the first box, select a target in the second.
- Done. Spits out a nice SQL file.
Also, I learned today that VS 2008 can import a SQL file, like the one generated here, into a database solution. Check constraints and defaults don't get put in, but its a big timesaver for PK's, FK's and tables.
Links:
http://www.orthogonalsoftware.com/toolboxaddons.html (dead)
http://www.dougboude.com/blog/1/2008/11/SQL-Forward-Engineering-with-Visio-2003-Professional.cfm
UPDATE: see comments for more information on generating DDL from a Visio doc
UPDATE: in Vista and Windows 7, try running Visio in XP SP2 compatibility mode. This cleared up an error in Visio 2007: "Requested Registry Access Is Not Allowed"
UPDATE: If you want the orthogonal software download, try this link here. Otherwise, try this: http://forwardengineer.codeplex.com/
"Avarice, the spur of industry" - David Hume
7 comments:
UPDATE:
Cannot get this to run on Windows 7, even with the copy-paste trick. Windows XP has no issues. Clearly, something with with the security "features" of Vista and more so with Win7 prevents this from running. The error I get in Win7 is Requested Registry access denied...
UPDATE:
More information on a way to do this:
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/alberto_ferrari/archive/2010/04/16/visio-forward-engineer-addin-for-office-2010.aspx
Would you (or anyone else) happen to still have a copy of the Orthogonal Toolbox they could send me? The Orthogonal site has gone and the owner isn't answering emails.
I've had a look at the Alberto Ferrari one but that means updating the whole Office suite to 2010 version. I did try to test it on a borrowed pc that has 2010 (+ net4) but I couldn't get it to install.
So if anyone still has the Orthogonal Toolbox, I would very much appreciate it. Any reasonable costs would be defrayed.
Here's the download:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B34dqsXqkyf1NmEzMTJmNDEtNTkwNS00MTFhLTg5ZDMtMGI5N2JhNDczNDM0
I am running visio 2010 I donwloaded the tool from
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B34dqsXqkyf1NmEzMTJmNDEtNTkwNS00MTFhLTg5ZDMtMGI5N2JhNDczNDM0
Then I installed the dotnetfix
Then I had the Requested Registry access denied error
But I got around it by running the Visio 2010 as administrator. It complained about some other plugin, so I said yes to disabled it.
After that it works just fine.
Thank yoyu
Orthogonal Toolbox website is gone. A new option is available though.
http://forwardengineer.codeplex.com/
Bless you. Link you provided above works - https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B34dqsXqkyf1NmEzMTJmNDEtNTkwNS00MTFhLTg5ZDMtMGI5N2JhNDczNDM0
I had lost the setup and I have a new machine and this orthogonal toolbox is indispensable for me.
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