Review Vector Graphics

Applies to Collaborator 14.5, last modified on March 26, 2024

Collaborator supports reviewing vector graphics of the following formats:

  • Microsoft Visio (.vdw, .vdx, .vsd, .vsdm, .vsdx, .vss, .vssm, .vssx, .vst, .vstm, .vstx, .vsx and .vtx.)
Note: Reviewing vector graphics is only supported in Collaborator Enterprise. For a complete list of differences between Collaborator editions, see the comparison page.
Document review is only supported on 64-bit Collaborator servers. On 32-bit platforms, Collaborator may fail to process the documents due to insufficient memory.
The Collaborator Visual Studio Extension and Eclipse Plug-in do not support reviewing vector graphics. Use the Web Client instead.

Upload Vector Graphics

To review Visio vector graphics, just attach them to the review as you would any other file and when you open the Diff Viewer, the content area will display the presentation contents for review.

View Differences

Vector graphics can only be viewed in a single or side-by-side layout. Diff Viewer cannot highlight differences in graphical objects, however it is able to highlight changes in text contents: changes are yellow, additions are green and deletions are red.

Reviewing Presentations

Click the image to enlarge it.

Scrollbars are available for each revision of the document. You are also able to move the separator to show more or less of either revision. To do this, drag the separator to the desired location.

Change Pages

To change pages (when a drawing consists of multiple pages), use the arrows at the bottom left of the comparison screen.

The arrows will allow you to go to the Previous Page or the Next Page. You can also manually enter a page number and hit enter to jump to any arbitrary page. The page numbers will refer to the latest upload of the document shown.

You can also use the mouse wheel to scroll through the pages (unless disabled by the respective option).

Page navigation is disabled when the document is loading or when it is converting to Collaborator's internal format. In that case, Collaborator displays progress indicators near the navigation buttons.

Zoom In And Out

Both the side-by-side and single view support zooming the images in the display. Zooming out is useful if the page is too large to display in the browser window without scrolling. Zoom is also useful for more precise placement of the comment markers. However, whether zoomed in or out, the comment markers still refer to pixel locations in the image at 100% zoom, so subpixel comments are not supported. If a zoom operation would cause the currently selected location to scroll offscreen, the image will be scrolled to recenter the selected location.

Rescaling of documents is performed by rerendering the document on the Collaborator server and could be slow depending on the size of the document and the selected image scale.

Make Comments and Mark Defects

On the left of the main Diff Viewer page, there is a pane for chat threads, where you can view and make comments and mark defects that should be fixed. When reviewing vector graphic files, you can create global, annotation, overall for file revision, coordinate (pushpin) and label comments and defects. Comment and defect description could be in plain-text or use rich-text and Markdown formatting, they could also mention other Collaborator users.

To comment on specific location, simply click the image at a point where you would like your comment to appear and begin typing. Collaborator will insert a pushpin () to indicate the comment. The number in the pushpin head corresponds to the comment's order within the current image.

You can hide pushpins by clicking the pushpin toggle button on the chat toolbar. Use this feature if a pushpin overlaps an important part of the document.

Alternatively, you may specify an arbitrary label, such as "Header section", to describe the content you are referring to. Using labeled locations decreases the confusion that can occur when large changes occur in a text document resulting in the pushpins not being adjacent to the corresponding text. Label text may not be updated.

To learn more about communicating during the reviews, see Types of Review Comments and Defects and Review Chats, Comments, and Defects topics.

Move Comment Pushpins

You can move an existing pushpin to a new position in a document. The feature should be enabled by administrator for all participants or for review creators only.

There are two ways to move a comment:

Using Drag and Drop

  1. Drag the pushpin mark and drop it over the new position in the document.

    Moving pushpins using drag-n-drop
    Moving pushpins using drag-n-drop

Using Move Comment handle

  1. Select the desired comment.

  2. Click and hold the Move Comment handle ().

  3. Drag the handle to the new position.

    Moving pushpins using handle
    Moving pushpins using handle

Document Review Notes

  • In multi-page drawings, the first page has smaller scale than other pages. The third-party library used for processing Visio graphics mimics the behaviour of the original Microsoft Visio application which also saves the first page smaller than other pages.

  • If the DiffViewer has troubles displaying small characters, diagrams or documents look blurry, you will need to increase the resolution scale via the com.smartbear.diff.image.resolution.scale Java VM option, restart Collaborator server and clear browser cache.

See Also

Review Materials
Diff Viewer

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