Dia

This article is about the diagram-creation software. For other meanings, see Dia (disambiguation).

Dia is a general-purpose diagram creation software program, developed as part of the GNOME project. Dia was originally created by Alexander Larsson. Dia uses a Controlled Single Document Interface (CSDI) similar to the GIMP and Sodipodi.

Dia is conceived in a modular way with several shape packages for different needs: flowchart, network diagrams, circuit diagrams, etc.

Dia is designed to serve a similar purpose to the commercial Windows program 'Visio'. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

Dia loads and saves diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default, to save space). Dia can export diagrams to various formats including Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) or Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), Drawing Interchange format (DXF), CGM, amongst others.

Dia can print diagrams including very large diagrams that span multiple pages. Dia can be scripted using the Python programming language.

See also

• Visio
• Kivio
• List of diagramming software
• List of UML programs

External links

• Dia Project Homepage
• Dia Tutorial written by Harry George