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What is the recommended format for export into a file system so that the diagram can be further edited safely stored in external source control systems (like SVN server) and then optionally re-uploaded to lucid chart for editing later? 



Would the visio format be the best way to do this? Thanks

Hi Anthony


Thanks for your post! Based on your described use case I would recommend using the Visio export/import as you've stated. Please let me know if you have further questions. 


Three years later is Visio still the only import/export format? Is the transformation 100% lossless? We don’t use Visio. I’ve stayed with draw.io (diagrams.net) because XML is the native file format. Images and permalinks into the app are not a reasonable substitute for a lossless file format that can be stored in version control systems.


@keith c Thanks for continuing this thread! I've answered your question in full detail in your other post here. To summarize for any other users looking for this answer importing XML files from draw.io is supported! At this time exporting as an XML file is not and our development team would love to hear about this request and any use case detail via our  Product Feedback section. Thank you for your feedback!


My organization also has a similar need. We are currently abandoning Visio and LucidChart is the best contender for a replacement. But as far as I can tell there is not a viable way to check a LucidChart "source file" into a source control system along with our documentation sources. 


With Visio we check in/commit graphics in the form of .svg and matching .vsdx files and currently have total of about 2700 Visio files. LucidChart imports these quite well but exporting them as Visio and then re-importing them later is far from a perfect solution. There always seem to be corruptions in the resulting re-imported file that have to be addressed before the LucidChart file matches its previously-exported SVG file.


Visio as you are probably aware can open and edit SVG files directly generally without issues. So a source file isn't even needed in a Visio workflow. But LucidChart does not properly open an SVG file. I've tried dragging some into an existing drawing (which seems to be the only way to open an SVG in LucidChart) and the result generally is not good. In the examples I have tried some objects appear but no text.


In short what I'm looking for is an ability to save a native LucidChart file to my local filesystem and then check it along with a corresponding SVG file into Bitbucket GitHub or some other source control system so that future generations can maintain files long after I've retired (which is not that far into the future in my case).


Hi @gary s102 thank you for sharing your feedback and a description of your use case. We appreciate and value your feedback. I've added this detail to the logged feedback for our development team to review.

If you'd like to share additional details about your use case or what you'd like to see from this experience we'd love to hear more via this thread or our Product Feedback section. Thanks again for taking the time to share your feedback and apologies for any inconvenience!


Thank you Leianne. I realized that there was a feature request form shortly after posting this and created a feature request with basically the same information. 


Thanks!


Thanks for the update @gary s102! We really appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback and feature request. Please feel free to let us know if you have any additional questions or create a post in the community for any other topics you'd like to discuss. Thanks!


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