[jchap]

I've tried to use the Pen tool in OmniGraffle Pro 5.2.1 to create custom shapes, but so far I've found the experience far less than satisfactory. I've used the pen tool in Illustrator quite a bit, and I've had some years of experience with Visio's drawing tools, but I've really had trouble with OmniGraffle's pen tool.

What I wanted to do was to create a wide and short rectilinear oval and a parallelogram. I decided to do this in Illustrator, and then believed I would be able to import the resulting shape into OmniGraffle.

I've tried exporting from Illustrator and then importing the shape into OmniGraffle with several data formats, including .svg, .emf and .pdf. What happens is that the shape gets imported and it looks all right on screen; but the vector path is not recognized in OmniGraffle. What this means is that I cannot change the fill or stroke of the imported shape.

Is there something that I'm missing? What's the best way to import custom-made vector shapes from other applications?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Jeff Chapman

[Joel]

Save as a PDF or PDF-compatible .ai file and OmniGraffle Professional should be able to directly open it (via the File Menu -> Open…) and then you can edit the vector information and vertex/bezier points.

Hope that helps,

[jchap]

Excellent - thanks. This hit the spot.

It's curious how the bezier points and path of the objects in the very same PDF can NOT be edited when using the File - Place Image option in OmniGraffle. This is admittedly a bit of a limitation - it would be nice to be able to place a vector-editable PDF into a .graffle file, without having to open a fresh document. It's a matter of convenience, really. Still, I'm pleased that at least the .ai -> .pdf -> .graffle workflow is an option.

Speaking of vectors, is there a tutorial available somewhere that focuses on how to effectively use the pen tool in OmniGraffle?

Jeff