vsdx-go

A Go library for reading, editing, writing, and rendering Microsoft Visio (.vsdx) files — no Visio or Office installation required.

Features

• Read & write .vsdx / .vsdm files: pages, shapes, text, connectors, masters.
• Edit position, size, rotation, text, character/paragraph formatting, line and fill styles, hyperlinks, connection points, layers, user-defined cells, and protection locks.
• Shape model with master-inheritance resolution for cells, text, geometry, and data properties.
• Per-shape SVG rendering: geometry (incl. NURBS → Bézier), arrows, line patterns, gradients, drop shadows, soft edges, transforms (rotation/flip), and nested groups.
• Authoring: create/duplicate masters, read .vssx stencils, document themes/variants and stylesheets.
• Extras: a 175+ function formula evaluator, A* connector auto-routing, Jinja-style text templating, schema validation, and file diffing.

Installation

go get github.com/wijnberg-net/vsdx-go/vsdx

Requires Go 1.21 or later. The only dependency is github.com/beevik/etree.

Quick start

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"log"

	"github.com/wijnberg-net/vsdx-go/vsdx"
)

func main() {
	vis, err := vsdx.Open("diagram.vsdx")
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
	defer vis.Close()

	// Inspect: print every shape on the first page.
	page := vis.GetPage(0)
	for _, shape := range page.AllShapes() {
		fmt.Printf("shape %s: %q\n", shape.ID, shape.Text())
	}

	// Edit: find a shape, change its text, position, and fill.
	if s := page.FindShapeByText("Hello"); s != nil {
		s.SetText("Updated")
		s.SetX(3.0)
		s.SetFillColor("#ff0000")
	}

	// Write the result to a new file.
	if err := vis.SaveVsdx("output.vsdx"); err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
}

Rendering to SVG

Rendering is done per shape with ShapeToSVG, which returns a *SVGResult whose SVG field (a []byte) holds the markup. Options are functional: WithSize, WithPrecision, and WithBrandColor.

shapes := vis.GetPage(0).AllShapes()

res, err := vsdx.ShapeToSVG(shapes[0],
	vsdx.WithSize(200, 150),
	vsdx.WithPrecision(2),
)
if err != nil {
	log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Println(string(res.SVG)) // the SVG markup

A whole master can be rendered with MasterToSVG. To assemble a full page, render its shapes and place each result.

Templating

Shape and page text may contain Jinja-style directives that RenderTemplate fills in from a context map:

vis.RenderTemplate(map[string]any{
	"name":      "Production",
	"count":     42,
	"show_info": true,
	"items":     []any{"Server A", "Server B"},
})

Directive	Description
{{key}}	Replace with a context value (supports arithmetic, e.g. {{x*y}})
{% for item in list %}	Duplicate the shape for each item
{% showif condition %}	Show or hide a shape or page (not, >, <, ==)
{% set self.x = expr %}	Set a shape property from an expression

API reference

The complete, always-current API — every type, method, and runnable example — is on pkg.go.dev.

A few entry points to get oriented:

• Open/save: Open, OpenBytes, (*VisioFile).Close, (*VisioFile).SaveVsdx
• Pages: (*VisioFile).GetPage, GetPageByName, GetPageNames, AddPage, CopyPage
• Find shapes: (*Page).AllShapes, ChildShapes, FindShapeByID, FindShapeByText, FindShapesByText
• Read shapes: (*Shape).Text, X/Y, Width/Height, Angle, FillColor, LineColor, CellValue
• Edit shapes: (*Shape).SetText, SetX/SetY, SetWidth/SetHeight, SetFillColor, SetLineColor, Move, FindReplace
• Geometry: (*Shape).AddGeometry, AddGeometryRect, and (*Geometry).AddMoveTo/AddLineTo/AddArcTo
• Render: ShapeToSVG, MasterToSVG
• Templating: (*VisioFile).RenderTemplate

Runnable examples live in examples/ and as Go examples on pkg.go.dev.

How it works

.vsdx (ZIP) → in-memory map[string][]byte → etree XML parse
  → VisioFile.Pages   (from visio/pages/…)
  → Page → Shapes      (from <Shapes> elements)
  → Shape → Cells, Geometry, DataProperties (from child elements)

Shapes can inherit from masters; a property lookup falls back to the master shape when a value is not set locally. Saving serialises the modified XML back into a new ZIP archive.

VSDX file format

A .vsdx file is a ZIP archive of XML parts:

[Content_Types].xml        content-type mappings
docProps/app.xml           document properties
visio/document.xml         styles and stylesheets
visio/pages/pages.xml      page definitions
visio/pages/page1.xml      page content (shapes, connects)
visio/masters/…            master shape definitions

XML namespace: http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/visio/2012/main.

Running tests

go test ./vsdx/...
go test ./vsdx/... -cover    # with coverage

Test fixtures are .vsdx files in tests/; golden SVGs for render tests live in testdata/golden/.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

BSD 3-Clause — see LICENSE.

Acknowledgements

vsdx-go was originally derived from the BSD-licensed vsdx Python library by Dave Howard, and has since been substantially rewritten and extended for Go.

Author

Michel Wijnberg

Trademarks

Microsoft and Visio are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. vsdx-go is an independent project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Microsoft.