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Save as Web and IE security

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The Visio "Save as Web Page" feature (updated in Visio 2003) is really great if you need to put your diagram on the web (File>Save as Web Page...). It goes way beyond just showing you a static image -- you can also pan and zoom, check out the custom properties behind a shape, search the document, and switch pages. Here is an example of a cross functional flowchart saved using this feature.

Some people have noticed that in Windows XP SP2, the Internet Explorer information bar pops up if you open one of these pages saved locally. This happens because by default IE blocks scripts on your local hard drive from executing, and Visio uses scripts to allow all that functionality I described above. This is kind of a pain, but doesn't happen when you have the web page saved on a web site or a file share (the file I linked to above is not modified at all). You can feel free to share those Visio web pages without worrying about your viewers having to deal with security dialogs.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2005
    wow! That's pretty impressive.

    Any reason you are using VML and not SVG? As far as I remember Visio now has an export to SVG option.

    SVG, more specifically the Adobe ActiveX control in IE, has the same security issues in XP SP2 when opening a local file.

    It's a pity that the ActiveX vendors can't sign their controls or something to get around this because most users aren't going to argue with IE when it warns of a potential security problem.

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2006
    I didn't see any panning or zooming availability when I tried your flowchart example.  Is this because it uses an ActiveX control and I am using Linux?  

  • Anonymous
    June 16, 2007
    When displaying a file consisting of numerous pages with hyperlinks, a navigation bar always shows up on the left side requiring me to hide it. How can I have this file display without the navigation bar when first accessed?

  • Anonymous
    December 16, 2008
    I have a visio document with multiple pages.  In the first page I have flowchat shapes which I have linked to other pages inside the same document though hyperlink. Now I save the file as a webpage and put it on a server. Upon clicking the hyperlinked shapes from the main page on the web page, IE does not open the correct page.  However I am able to access these other pages from the "Go to Page" navigation menu. I do not see this problem in Mozilla, Firefox or Safari. Viso version is 2007.  IE version is 7. Any idea how to fix this?