BANGALORE: Nowadays creating a unique and noticeable diagrams, be it technical document or project plan, is not at all a tough task, thanks to all the free web-based drawing tools. Even IT firms can make use of these tools to create diagrams such as UI layouts, flowcharts, and use cases in any browser. All these drawing tools are highly recommended, as they can create images with speed of light. Check out top five web based free drawing tools as listed by Articpost.
Gliffy: This online drawing tool is based on HTML 5 and it helps to create UML Diagrams, flowcharts, UI form components, ER diagrams, and more. Using Gmail account, you can sign up with Gliffy in order to save your drawings. In the free plan only 5 diagrams can be created and can utilize maximum of 2MB storage space. Gliffy Library contains some good sets of shapes that are well categorized. Using this categories, users can even develop a floor plan for their home or office. Gliffy’s chart feature will make use of your Google Spreadsheet to create charts and you can place the created charts into your diagram. There are Revision History for each diagram you generate. In case you need the previous version of your diagram, with the help of Revision History you can revert to the previous version. Using the Collaborate option which is located under the Share Menu, you can forward your diagram to the team mates. Your diagram will be in private mode by default, change this to public mode and share the link via Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. So anyone can view your diagram without having to register with Gliffy. Images can be exported to Gliffy, SVG, JPG or PNG format.
Draw.io: This is an online diagram drawing tool that can create diagrams using any browser. Draw.io is an mxGraph JavaScript Library based tool that is widely used by the top companies throughout the world. This tool provides 18 categories of shapes for creating your diagrams. Only 9 default categories are displayed in this tool, if you need to load all of them just click on More Shapes options that is located under File Menu. Using this tool, you can create UML Diagrams, Lean Mapping based diagrams, Entity Relation Diagrams, and more. In this tool three categories are allotted to BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation), using these users can mold their business process. It also contains categories such as Mockup Forms, Mockup Buttons, and Mockup Navigation to develop Mockup screens or UI for the software or application that you create. There are other 6 Clipart categories available which can be used for various functions, users can also take an image from Google and place it in their diagram which can be saved in different file format such as JPG, GIF, PNG, PDF, SVG or XML.
Creately: In order to sign up with Creately, you can make use of your Google, Twitter, or Facebook accounts. The free plan enables to create only 1 Project, 5 diagrams and includes maximum of 3 collaborators. Features such as User Management, Visio Import, SVG Export, and Multiple Admins are only available in personal and Team Paid plans. Using this tool, you can create wide range of images like Site Maps, Family Trees, Story Boards, UI Mockups, Network Diagrams, Infographics, and Value Stream Mapping, and so on. Based on your choice for drawing the diagram, this online drawing tool offers templates that can be used as a base to develop your diagram. You can import images that are in the format of GIF, JPEG, SVG, PNG, VSX, VDX, VTX and CMDL. You can also save your created diagrams in the form of CMDL, XML, PDF, SVG, JPEG or PNG.
Lucid Chart: The tool can provide all its features only for 14 days and after that you will have to move back to the free account which misses some of the previously used technicalities. As Lucid Chart is based on HTML5, it can work well with any of the browsers. The Lucid Master Page concept is really notable. After creating a page, add the contents in header and footer of the page that you need to reuse throughout the pages. Then use the Convert to Master option from the Page menu to change your page as a Master page. The Hotspots feature in Lucid Chart helps for creating actions that make the image interactive in demo mode. The Library of Lucid Chart is loaded with some good objects, which can be used to create exemplary diagrams. Group Chat feature of this tool enables to converse seamlessly with their team mates. The diagrams can be downloaded in the form of PNG, PDF, and JPEG
ASCII Flow: If you are searching for an easy method to create some diagrams, then ASCII Flow is best choice. This tool is based on GWT (Google Web Template) and it operates on Google App Engine and is very simple and easy to use. Draw the boxes and arrows wherever you need them, and insert the text using the type tool. After completing the insertion, just press the enter key in order to save the text. Once you are done, you can export in the form of text or HTML. Even if this tool is not much influential like the rest of the above, you can use this while you send diagrams in plain HTML.
Source | http://www.siliconindia.com
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