Visio is exclusively available for Windows, and we can easily view a Visio file in Visio on a Windows PC. But Microsoft Visio for Mac has never been released, so how do we open Visio files on Mac? The good news is that we have several good Visio viewer for Mac out there. Here we have selected and reviewed 6 powerful Visio viewers for Mac, you may also find instructions on how to utilize them.
Cisdem Document Reader
Free DownloadDisplay Visio files correctly: First of all, a Visio Viewer must should have the ability to correctly display Visio files, including example diagram relationships, shape formats, hidden layers and subordinate layouts, etc., to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the Visio file content.
Support different extensions of Visio: An excellent Visio Viewer should support a rich variety of Visio file formats, especially the most used ones like vsd, vsdx, vdx. This not only helps you save time, but also helps you plan your workflow very conveniently.
Smooth reading experience: No matter reading one or multiple Visio files at one time, faster file loading won’t drain out user’s experience. Different view modes, styles or tools will help to enhance the reading experience and make it enjoyable.
Easy to use: User-friendly interface, easy to use, and the reasonable functional design can directly increase the user's willingness to use, such as supporting batch opening of files under a tab, smooth file reading experience, etc.
Extended features would be even better: Versatility is always loved by users. Any extra feature like bookmark, search, rotate just adds radiance to the viewer.
With these criteria in mind, we have tested a number of Visio Viewers for Mac, including online, offline and free ones, finally we picked the following 6 best.
Basically, there are 2 types of Visio viewer for Mac: online and offline. Here basing on the criteria we mentioned as above, we picked 6 best online or offline Visio viewers for Mac, including several free ones. First, you can have a glimpse of these readers:
| Type | Main Features | Supported Formats | Reading Experience | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cisdem Document Reader for Mac | Offline | View, convert and print Visio files | vsd, vsdx, vdx, pdf, wpd, wps, xps, oxps, djvu, and winmail.dat etc. | Great |
| Nektony Mac Visio Viewer | Offline | View, convert and email Visio files | vsd, vdx, vsdx | Good |
| Lawbox VSD Viewer Pro | Offline | View, convert and share Visio files | vsd, vdx, vsdx, vsx, vss and vssx | Good |
| Microsoft Visio Online | Online | View and allow basic editing on Visio files | vsdm, vdw, vdx, vtx | Good |
| Lucidchart Visio Viewer | Online | View, share, import and export Visio files | vdx, vsd, vsdx, vsdm | Medium |
| VSD Viewer | Online | View VSD files | vsd | Medium |
Cisdem Document Reader can work as a great Visio viewer for Mac, as it supports VSD, VSDX, VDX and offers a variety of viewing options such as multi-tab viewing, page navigation, zoom, rotation, and so on. It guarantees high quality viewing, displaying the file exactly as it was.
In addition, it can convert Visio to other formats such as PDF, Text, JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF and TIFF. You can also directly print Visio file within the viewer.
Designed to read Windows-based files and documents on macOS, Cisdem Document Reader also supports formats like PDF, WPD, WPS, XPS, OXPS, DJVU and Winmail.dat files. Some other features includes searching, bookmarking and image extraction.
This Mac Visio viewer is easy to use with a simple intuitive interface where the tools and options are neatly displayed. You can customize the toolbar. From the top menu bar, select View > Customize Toolbar.
Free Download
This Mac Visio viewer allows users to open vsd, vdx and vsdx Microsoft Visio files. Just like Cisdem Document Reader, it ensures that texts will be displayed in the same way as the original format when they were created. Advertised as a free Visio file viewer for macOS, it’s actually a paid application with 5-day free trial.
It offers a set of viewing options like Zoom, Navigation and Hand Scroll. You can easily find all the features and options in the toolbar. If you need to print the current Visio drawing, just click the Print icon there. It’s very easy to use. However, just as with any software application, it’s not perfect. In rare cases, the text could fail to display. That being said, it generally works great and opens Visio files without distortion. To use this Visio file viewer, just launch it. Drag and drop a drawing into it.
Here’s another great macOS Visio viewer. It’s designed to open, view, share and convert Visio files and supports 5 different Visio formats: VSD, VSDX, VSX, VSS and VSSX. You can use it to convert Visio files to PDF or image files. It’s not a Visio editor, so you can’t edit Visio files on Mac using it.
Capable enough to open and convert Visio drawings and stencil files, this Visio viewer can be helpful to Mac users who don’t have easy access to a Windows PC installed with Visio. If you have problem viewing your file using this application, you can contact their support team who will help you out right away2.
To use it, just import a file by dragging and dropping. Use the features and options provided to view, share and convert it as you wish.
Although Visio and Microsoft Visio Viewer are exclusively accessible for Windows, Microsoft does provide a solution for users of other operating systems such as macOS. It allows you to view and comment on Visio files online.
This online Visio viewer and creator from Microsoft is available for almost all Office 365 business subscribers. In addition to viewing, you can also add comments and do some basic editing. If you want to get your files further edited, it will direct you to the desktop software Visio, which is not available on Mac.
There is an array of features such as Pan, Zoom, Find, Shape Info, and Refresh Data. If you want to email your drawing to others, simply click the Share button. Basic editing features such as Text and Font, Undo and Redo, and so on are also available. Switch to viewing mode by clicking the View button.
Lucidchart Visio Viewer is an online alternative to Visio that is both powerful and user-friendly. It works as a browser extension on major Internet browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer.
After installing this Visio viewer in your browser on Mac, you can instantly open VSD, VDX and VSDX files. It offers page navigation and a set of zoom options. You can also choose to show or hide the grid. To edit and further manipulate Visio files, one needs to pay.
In addition to local Visio files, Lucidchart Visio Viewer users used to be able to directly open Visio files received in Gmail and stored online. For Visio file attachments, Gmail offered the option of opening them in Lucidchart. To view a Visio file stored online, users only needed to right-click the file’s link and select Open in Lucidchart. Features like these are very useful, hope they will come back soon.
The good news is you can still do it in Gmail, in a slightly different manner. Click the attachment. From the list of suggested third-party apps, select Lucidchart and allow its access to your Gmail.
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Because this online viewer is exclusively for the VSD format, it can only be used to open Visio drawings. If you try to add an OPC/XML drawing, it will refuse to upload.
In Comparison to the other online viewers described above, this one has a relatively restricted set of features. You can only zoom in and zoom out. It doesn’t offer any additional features. But in general, it can quickly upload and open files without distortion.
Thanks to Visio viewers for Mac, we don’t need to find a Windows computer installed with Visio to view VSD and VSDX drawings. Although the free online viewer can help you quickly open Visio file, there are still a large number of users who prefer professional solutions. Cisdem Document Reader for Mac is a professional tool that can help you save time and energy and greatly improve efficiency, I highly recommend it.
Bianca is a senior tech editor and strategist at Cisdem with Over 10 years of experience on PDF related solutions which covers all document editing, annotating, converting and managing etc.
Anthony
Why the online visio viewer took me forever to load and read the files? Any other online recommendations?
Santosh
Very powerful Mac Visio viewer. I am at a university and I can use Visio for free but I prefer DocumentReader for most things. It provides many functions. I can use it to read multiple files on Mac and convert them to different formats.
stefan
Documentreader is better. Not just quicker, intuitive, flexible, well thought out and extremely helpful. Real best visio viewer for Mac.
Paul
Great application and detailed steps. Visio files in my Mac open flawlessly. I now have absolutely zero worry about viewing Visio files on Mac. Perfect!
Vamsi
Thank you for the options. Definitely made it easy.
Nb Mick
I have downloaded Cisdem DocumentReader to have a try. The app is nicely designed to open and view Visio files without any hassles.That's really the best visio viewer for Mac.
Staysha
Got it! Thanks a lot again for helinpg me out!
Do
I tried the first one, it really did a good job. I like it.
Charles
Thank you for providing so many useful Visio Viewers for us. I will try.